CRS Finds Pay Compression Worsening

By: fedweek

Pay compression—the narrowing difference in pay between top federal officials and the people they supervise—has been increasing in recent years due largely to the government’s system of capping high-level pay, the Congressional Research Service has said. In an analysis done for a recent House hearing, CRS noted that GS-15 employees in some locality pay areas are currently unable to receive the full pay increases they would otherwise receive—those at steps 7-10 in the San Francisco locality, those at steps 9 and 10 in the Houston, Los Angeles and New York localities and those at step 10 in the Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Hartford and San Diego localities. Without changes in the cap—set at executive level IV, currently $145,000—“more pay areas are expected to be affected, with more GS-15 employees in those areas receiving the same amounts of pay,” CRS said. Also, it said that in 1991 Cabinet secretaries and others at the top of the executive schedule were paid 28 percent more than those at the top of the SES schedule, but currently the difference is only 11 percent, at agencies with an SES ratings system certified as making meaningful distinctions in performance.