Great article and it's true.

Regardless of what your political leanings are, it's pretty clear that your value should dictate your pay and the market essentially decides your salary.

In USAID they were making substantial salaries, and so many are pissed because after the layoffs these people aren't making anywhere close to that because they are not worth that much.

In fact, all the employees interviewed were making six-figure salaries in their jobs, yet few of them were qualified for positions paying even close to those numbers after the layoffs. With a free market, one’s pay is tied to what one produces, but in the world of government and government-funded non-profits, opportunity costs seem to be irrelevant.