Once you leave the academy, the salary is about $32,000. Then depnding on your facility the pay raises come fairly quickly or slowly. Centers take a whole lot longer than towers to add up. Its not a yearly thing like you pilots have....in terms of getting to the bottom of the pay band (detemined by your facilities ATC level) throughout training. After your certified, raises are annual to some extent. At ATL ATCT, our developmentals get a segmental raise each time they certify on 3 positions. We have several foks who have moved from $32K to the $80K range in less than a year. Just really depnds on the person and facility. And remember that ATL is the highest pay band. If you get assigned to a lower level facility than an ATC-12, your max pay will be less than what I spoke of.