A new investigation by ABC7/WJLA reporter Chris Papst highlights data on the number of federal civilian workers earning more than $100,000 in annual wages. Using data from the Office of Personnel Management, Papst reports:

… last year the number of federal employees making more than $100,000 topped 500,000 for the first time. That’s 25 percent of the entire federal workforce of roughly 2.1 million. In the last 15 years, the number of federal workers making $100,000 increased from 66,116 to 509,025, a nearly 800 percent increase.

The chart below shows Papst’s data. The number of high-paid federal workers soared during the 2000s, but has grown more slowly in recent years. There is stark contrast between the George W. Bush years and the Barack Obama years. The number of federal workers earning more than $100,000 more than quadrupled under Bush (83,532 in 2001 to 389,828 in 2009), but has risen 31 percent since 2009 (to reach 509,025 by 2015).

What explains the spendthrift record of Bush and the more frugal record of Obama? Partly, Bush wanted large pay increases for the uniformed military, and to gain support he agreed to large increases for the civilian workforce. Partly, the new pay system in place for the Pentagon in the later Bush years inflated civilian Pentagon pay, as described by Dennis Cauchon. And partly, the Obama frugality was the result of a three-year partial pay freeze backed by the Republicans and approved by the president.

For more on federal pay, see DownsizingGovernment.org.

Data note: figure for 2002 in chart is estimated.