Quote:
Gonzalez has been a correction officer since 2009 and earns a salary of $53,947, said Chris Burke, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
[
New York Daily News, 2/6/13, p. 7]
When some stiff is arrested and the paper runs the only detail the reader cares about — the defendant's salary — try to make it
is paid or
receives.[*]
Earns is for a job well done, and the story [here, a jail guard impregnated, supposedly by a cop killer] usually calls that into question.
[*]
Past tense, if you want to be brave.