There is another axis that would be pretty interesting.  I suspect that these &quot;national security&quot; types get a sizable and relatively automatic boost in pay for a PhD and it&#x27;s likely not correlated to any performance or value.<p>Top Secret America by Dana Priest (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Top-Secret-America-American-Security&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0316182206&#x2F;ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1454004076&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=top+secret+america" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Top-Secret-America-American-Security&#x2F;d...</a>)  is a somewhat interesting read on it.  There are some politically angled results you can take from it but one of the most obvious non-political results is that the national security apparatus employs people that tend to be better paid, live in better areas and have all those benefits (better schools for their kids, less crime, etc..) They also seem to be disproportionately white men.  If you squint your eyes just right, it looks an awful lot like a jobs program for white men.  The book is a few years old but as I remember it I want to say the average pay for a top secret cleared generic &#x27;analyst&#x27; was in the $150k+ range,  more if you&#x27;re in a valuable specialty.  Then the real kicker,  most of them justify their own jobs and contracts,  oversight consists of reading that justification,  which I guess isn&#x27;t totally unusual for government work but since they&#x27;re contractors it&#x27;s a little odd.. It&#x27;s not performance based.