Were lots of DC-area professionals overpaid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IDK 272K is outrageous for a non-profit.

Go read the 990 tax forms of non profits. For many of the so-called trade associations, the executive director/ceo makes millions.

Who pays these salaries? Members's dues of the trade associations? Or the government? Genuinely curious.

It’s member company dues. Not taxpayers. A ridiculous comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know some people aren't going to like hearing this but USAID wasn't just feeding poor kids in Africa. That was only a tiny percentage of USAID work and actually still goes on under State.

Most of USAID was pet projects and donor causes f9r liberals and an entire NGO industry grew up around it, often started by former USAIDers. And when something like that happens, you find a lot of cronyism. It's sort of comparable to big city government machines finding plum jobs and sinecures for their supporters. And it went unchecked and unregulated, so admin salaries at the NGOs exploded. Some founders became quite rich acting as contractors. And while some good projects happened, a lot of it was dubious and just another way to slosh billions around consultants and contractors with people feeding from the trough both in DC and on the ground overseas and the % that actually ended up being used for genuinely good outcomes is much smaller than most people realize. And USAID was definitely used to indirectly send money undercover to entities overseas.

USAID did become a liberal sinecure entity, using taxpayer dollars to effectively reward liberal supporters and connections. It's why the Trump administration moved so fast to shut it down. And it's also why no one is missing USAID. Only maybe 1% genuinely ended up helping villagers in developing countries.

I'm sorry for the people in the article but the whole industry was rampant with cronyism and out of touch.

100

The destruction of USAID was estimated to have caused 600,000 deaths as of last November. Probably at least 1 million by now

Citation?

[Anonymous]

I have always thought that USAID was mainly used as a cover for CIA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get back to us when your whole industry goes away, OP.

This. The job market in this geographic area is damaged by DOGE and the job market in her specific field was destroyed. That doesn't mean she was overpaid for the work she did before that happened. It means the world changed.

It was a fake job market, a big scam to funnel money to an industry that shouldn't exist except to fund itself.

Anyone who doesn’t see the benefit of USAID is naive or stupid.

Sure, there was some waste built in. Some people were overpaid (though I argue everyone in finance or law is overpaid and they make people’s lives worse not better), some programs weren’t cost effective, but there was real, measurable, meaningful net gain. Even if you don’t think that fighting HIV, treating TB in millions, educating girls, empowering women to not get pregnant until they want to, building roads, etc is good in and of itself (which, if you aren’t a psychopath, it is) AT LEAST you must acknowledge that those programs curb Islamic extremism, slow climate change, and actually supply the American government with an incredible amount of sway over the countries whose programs we were in.

Y’all some idiotic ayn rand stans in here or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have always thought that USAID was mainly used as a cover for CIA

It’d be stupid if some projects/employees weren’t. So yeah, this whole thing is making the entire world much less safe… at least for Americans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know some people aren't going to like hearing this but USAID wasn't just feeding poor kids in Africa. That was only a tiny percentage of USAID work and actually still goes on under State.

Most of USAID was pet projects and donor causes f9r liberals and an entire NGO industry grew up around it, often started by former USAIDers. And when something like that happens, you find a lot of cronyism. It's sort of comparable to big city government machines finding plum jobs and sinecures for their supporters. And it went unchecked and unregulated, so admin salaries at the NGOs exploded. Some founders became quite rich acting as contractors. And while some good projects happened, a lot of it was dubious and just another way to slosh billions around consultants and contractors with people feeding from the trough both in DC and on the ground overseas and the % that actually ended up being used for genuinely good outcomes is much smaller than most people realize. And USAID was definitely used to indirectly send money undercover to entities overseas.

USAID did become a liberal sinecure entity, using taxpayer dollars to effectively reward liberal supporters and connections. It's why the Trump administration moved so fast to shut it down. And it's also why no one is missing USAID. Only maybe 1% genuinely ended up helping villagers in developing countries.

I'm sorry for the people in the article but the whole industry was rampant with cronyism and out of touch.

100

The destruction of USAID was estimated to have caused 600,000 deaths as of last November. Probably at least 1 million by now

Citation?

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts

https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2025/tracking-anticipated-deaths-from-usaid-funding-cuts/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/world/lancet-usaid-global-aid-cuts-intl

you also can’t do the work to determine what advances in healthcare and climate science will now be lost. That cost is arguably immeasurable.

Nobody is angry enough.

[Anonymous]

Any question like this is absolutely, completely, positively stupid when the effective tax rate for billionaires is like 5% and bezos has paid $0 in tax multiple years.

You’re drinking the koolaid and getting angry with talented people who make a middle-class income in a very expensive city.

[Anonymous]

What does it even mean to be overpaid?

I think those hedge fund manager, private equity directors, algorithmic traders up in NYC are overpaid. They get millions in bonuses every year and how exactly do they contribute to society or anything?

I think those tech people in silicon valley are overpaid. Again, they get millions in stocks to do what exactly? Make society dumber with their products? Add x amount of convenience to our lives while taking away y amount of privacy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:USAID got killed because Elon was following Mike Benz on twitter and believed in his conspiracy theories. A lot of people died as a result.

This did not happen because of corruption, and if you actually care about corruption, you should be livid every single day at this administration.

+1000000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?

OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?

OP are you ok? USAID isn't a nonprofit.

What was she doing for $272K a year that someone else couldn't do for say $120K or even $100K?

I do belive there are a ton of people being way overpaid in large cities like DC.

Do you live in DC? Do you have any idea the COL here? 100k would be criminal exploitation for an educated, experienced employee.

[Anonymous]

can someone post a free gift link? thank you

[Anonymous]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/us/politics/usaid-former-employees.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dVA.hZzP.r8swcF4qBfqp&smid=url-share

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was fired from my job at USAID. I worked in the woodchuck department. We were so close to finding out how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Now we will probably never know.

hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/us/politics/usaid-former-employees.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dVA.hZzP.r8swcF4qBfqp&smid=url-share

its just stuck on the spinning thing saying "Thank you for your patience while we verify access." and doesn't verify access. Is cutting and pasting the text here allowed? If so....we'd be so grateful!