Dr. Anthony Fauci says he won’t be retiring any time soon, despite qualifying for the largest federal retirement package in the country’s history.
Dr. Fauci, who turned 81 last week, would qualify for an annual retirement that would exceed $350,000, according to an analysis that the government spending watchdog OpenTheBooks.com did for Forbes.
He said earlier this month that he would not be stepping down as President Biden’s top COVID-19 adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“There’s no way I’m going to walk away from this until we get this under control,” Dr. Fauci said on ABC News, referring to the pandemic. “I mean, that’s the purpose of what we do. That’s our mission in life. In the middle of it, I’m not going to walk away.”
He has been a federal employee for 55 years and rose to celebrity status at the height of the pandemic in early 2020.
For the past two years, the epidemiologist was the most highly compensated federal employee. He earned over $417,000 in 2019, and more than $434,000 in 2020, outearning the president and four-star generals.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management reports that federal employees with lengths of service as long as Dr. Fauci’s can earn up to 80% of their highest three-year average salary and credit for their sick leave.
During his tenure leading the coronavirus response, he has come under scrutiny over supporting strict lockdowns.
Dr. Fauci also came under fire for telling Congress that the National Institutes of Health didn’t fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, though some NIH grants did fund similar types of research at the Chinese lab.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Mica Soellner can be reached at msoellner@washingtontimes.com.
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