Pay Roundup: Federal Pay Gap Widens, Locality Updates, Congressional Action
The pay gap between federal employees and private sector counterparts is widening, according to the Federal Salary Council.
Federal employees earned an average of 27.54 percent less in wages than workers doing similar jobs in the private sector in 2023, up more than three percent from the 2022 numbers. It’s the fifteenth consecutive year the pay gap has remained above 20 percent but is an improvement from the nearly 35 percent pay gap reported in 2015.
The highest pay gap in 2023 is in Silicon Valley, California, where the gap is a whooping 109 percent.
Federal workers are due to receive an average raise of 5.2 percent starting in January 2024. That’s a 4.7 percent across the board raise, and an average raise of 0.5 percent in locality pay.
However, federal labor groups including the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), say the raise doesn’t go far enough.
“It is outrageous that our nation’s civil servants have lost ground in the fight for fair pay, and it makes our push for an adequate raise in 2024 all the more urgent,” said NTEU President Doreen Greenwald, who urged Congress to pass the FAIR Act, which would give an 8.7 percent average raise to General Schedule (GS) employees.
Updated Locality Pay
In addition to its reporting on the pay gap, the Federal Salary Council tweaked locality pay areas and added four new ones.
That means more than 33,000 federal employees in total are due to see bumps in pay starting with their January 2024 paychecks.
The four new locality pay areas for 2024 are:
· Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California;
· Reno-Fernley, Nevada;
· Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, New York;
· Spokane-Spokane Valley-Coeur d’Alene, Washington-Idaho.
In addition, two counties in Washington state, Clallam and Jefferson, were officially added to the Seattle-Tacoma locality pay area.
The council did not recommend any new locality pay areas for 2025. However, it approved maintaining existing counties and regions on its “research areas” list, for possible inclusion in the future. The council also approved a recommendation to review lowering the barrier to entry for inclusion as a research area.
Also, the council endorsed the 5.2 percent 2024 pay raise, and noted its support for any plans to address pay compression for senior executives.
Congress Weighs Action
In addition to the FAIR Act, there is also a congressional effort to reform locality pay.
The Locality Pay Equity Act, bicameral legislation introduced by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and Representative Matt Cartwright (D-PA), requires the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to treat all federal workers in a specific locality equally.
Currently, the boundaries for locality pay for GS salaried workers and hourly workers on the Federal Wage System (FWS) will sometimes not align with GS workers often receiving more money. This legislation would fix that issue by requiring OPM to treat all employees working in a specific location the same when it comes to locality pay.