SEC Employees’ Salaries Twice as Much as Other US Government Employees

SEC’s average employee salary is over 100% higher than the average earning of other government and federal agencies’ staff.

Ripples General Counsel Reacts to SEC Funding Request for Fiscal Year 2024 as the budget testimony of Gary Gensler, SEC Chair, in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, has continued to spark reactions.

Fox Business Journalist Reacts

A few hours before the testimony, Fox Business journalist Eleanor Terrett shared a copy of SEC’s budget for Fiscal Year 2024, with emphasis on the agency’s employees’ salaries.

According to the document, the head of the SEC requested a whopping $2.43 billion to pay employees’ salaries and other benefits for Fiscal Year 2024.

Terret noted that out of the SEC’s total funding request, $1.6 billion would be used to pay the salaries of 5,473 employees of the commission. 

“A whopping $1.6B for 5,473 people in fact,” she said. 

Terret considers the request a bit over the top, especially when compared with the earnings of employees in other federal agencies. To shed more light, Terret disclosed that the average SEC employee salary for Fiscal Year 2022 was $156,458.

According to Terret, the average SEC employee salary last year was 115.9% higher than the national average for other federal agency staff and 125.6% higher than the earnings for other government employees.

The average employee salary for the @SECGov in 2022 was $156,458. This is 125.6% higher than the national average for government employees and 115.9% percent higher than other federal agencies, according to OpenPayrolls.

— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) March 29, 2023

Alderoty Asks How Much Is Budgeted for Rulemaking

Aside from Terret, Ripple’s general counsel Stuart Alderoty also commented on Gensler’s funding request for the Securities and Exchange Commission. In a tweet yesterday, Alderoty focused on employees’ salaries in the SEC’s Enforcement division.

“The SEC’s $2.2B funding request includes $680M for 1,500 enforcement staff,” said Alderoty. 

He questioned how much the SEC intends to allocate to provide clear rules for crypto compared to spending on enforcement actions for Fiscal Year 2024.

“So how much of this is for rulemaking to provide actual guidance vs. more enforcement actions that stretch theories (and the SEC’s jurisdiction) far past any faithful allegiance to the law?” 

Alderoty is known for always speaking against the SEC’s regulation tactics. For Alderoty, the SEC would regulate the crypto space through enforcement to protect its turf instead of providing clear rules.

He believes the SEC is using the tactic to “bully and bulldoze” crypto innovation out of the US. In a recent report, Alderoty described the SEC’s claim that crypto companies could “come in and register” as a switch and bait trap, adding that the agency knows there is no path to registration.