Pay-for-performance plan (surprise!) subject to racism. And that was at the Pentagon.

Reporting on a Pentagon study in the Washington Post:

One big problem with the NSPS (National Security Personnel System) version of pay for performance was how, and by whom, employees’ performances were evaluated. Evaluations determined their pay. In his prepared text, John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, cited an internal NSPS report, prepared by SRA International, a Fairfax consulting firm, that he said “showed inequities based on race, salary, position and where in the DOD hierarchy one worked.”

Employees in higher-level, higher-paid positions “got higher performance ratings and payouts than lower-level, lower-paid employees,” Gage said. “The report further found that, in general, being a racial minority had a negative effect on one’s rating and payout, and being black had a more negative effect than membership in other racial groups.”