Why Jack Lew Should Work in Treasury’s IT Department
Jack Lew might want to pause before agreeing this week to take Timothy F. Geithner’s job as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury.
Lew would be paid better — far better, in fact — as a rank-and-file staffer at the department, or even as an IT guy.
Lew, who is expected to be nominated for Treasury Secretary this week, will be paid $191,300 to run the Treasury Department — or at least that is what Geithner is currently paid. Yet, that salary is 36% less than the highest-paid, rank-and-file Treasury employee. And who might that be? As of the end of 2011, the most recently time period for which such data is available, that person was Julie L. Williams, the General Attorney of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is part of Treasury. Williams was paid $259,500 in 2011, according to data made available by the Asbury Park Press.
In fact, about 370 Treasury employees appear as though they will be paid more than Lew, according to 2011 data. Lew’s salary will nearly equal Thomas J. Donahue‘s, a financial institutions examiner with the OCC based in Edison, N.J. However, even Glenn A. Cadoret, who works in the IT department at the Treasury, is paid more than Lew’s prospective salary. Cadoret gets $192,168 per year.
Treasury employs more than 100,000.
