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The median household income also includes many people doing unskilled labor. Attempting to compare skilled labor to unskilled labor like that only serves to drive down wages.

No one is saying you can't afford to live on $160K GS-15 pay. They are saying it's hard to walk away from $200K-$300+K pay of a webtech job.

Regardless of whether you're making above the median and your skills have more value, that should not require you to suffer a pay cut to spend 1-2 years doing thankless work.

Regardless of DC median wages, housing is very expensive to be reasonably close to where you'd be working onsite for 18F or USDS assignments.

Being a little less rich than possible is a relative loss, but it's not "suffering". Nor is it more "thankless' than being a cog at a tech company.