Plus a minimum 14% cost-of-living adjustment, plus benefits associated with a job with the Federal government. Assuming you've got a PhD that immediately puts you in the GS 13/14 range, which is about $80-112k plus the above.
Nobody applies to be an astronaut to get rich, but for a well-educated person $150k in pay and benefits is absolutely possible, which is a great paycheck, especially in Houston.
Having a PhD offers no such guarantee in the federal government. I have a GS-11 friend who has an aerospace engineering PhD, granted only 4 years into her employment, but still no guarantee.
The GS grades are not about education, but job responsibility. The grade for a given position also depends on the agency you're working for and where. An engineer with the AF working for ACC might be a GS-11, but a GS-12 if they switched to AFMC, or GS-13 if they did the same job with AFMC at another base.
> Having a PhD offers no such guarantee in the federal government.
I misread the GS site, you are correct.
Still quite a bit above the median in terms of salary, which was my only real point (and that if you are primarily motivated by money, advanced degrees and Federal government employment is probably not in your future, anyway).
Nobody applies to be an astronaut to get rich, but for a well-educated person $150k in pay and benefits is absolutely possible, which is a great paycheck, especially in Houston.