Yeah. Anyone who claims they are drawing $8k with 6 years of experience is lying.

1-2 years to promote from geo 2 to geo 3. Standard cohort promotion.
2 years to promote from geo 3 to geo 4, and another 2 years to geo 5. This is super accelerated considering that normal people takes 5-8 years to promote for each paygrade.

8k is close to the ceiling of geo5, which is what someone will get after many years in that paygrade. For someone newly promoted, their salary is probably at the bottom or middle of the salary band. A newly promoted geo5 with limited YOE should be drawing around 6.5k-ish.

Furthermore, during last year's salary revision, geo 4s and 5s have the lowest increment.

OP just fishing for attention