Last year, 939 of the employees who outearned the president were medical officers at the Veterans Health Administration, which provides care for 9.1 million veterans across 1,380 facilities. Four of the employees are listed as dentists.
Micah Nix, an emergency room doctor with the Indian Health Service, outearned the president, as did one unnamed employee at the Bureau of Prisons.
There were also 15 doctors at the National Institutes of Health earning more than $400,000, including the four highest paid employees in the entire federal workforce. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, took home $519,246, breaking his own record for the highest federal salary in U.S. history.
Dr. Anthony Fauci once held the record with a $480,654 salary in 2022. Gibbons surpassed that with a $492,643 salary in 2023 and has now become the only federal employee to earn more than $500,000.
The 956 employees are spread across 48 different states. California is home to 162 of them. Florida is in second place with 59, and North Carolina has 50. Five of the top six highest paid federal employees work in Maryland.
The count of 956 employees does not include an additional 36 that earned exactly $400,000 — the same as the president.
Hellbound and Down 