The fiscal 2007 budget recommendation closely follows release of
a report showing that the average gap between federal and non-
federal pay as measured by the government for locality pay setting
purposes was 13.37 percent as of last March. The President’s Pay
Agent, a high-level advisory group on federal pay that operates to
carry out the 1990 federal pay law designed to virtually close the
pay gap–a law that has never been funded sufficiently to meet that
goal–said that after taking into account locality pay already being
paid, along with an adjustment mandated by the law, the pay gap
ranged from 24.45 percent in the New York locality to 7.24 percent
in the “rest of the U.S.” locality, which encompasses areas within
the contiguous 48 states outside one of the designated metropolitan
zones. Other localities with the largest gaps included San Francisco,
24.32 percent, San Diego, 19.38, Hartford, 19.29, Washington, D.C.,
18.93, and Sacramento, 18.64. The figures don’t take into account the
federal raises paid last month, which averaged just above 3.1 percent,
nor increases in private sector pay since last March.
