In most years the ECI figure alone has effectively become the starting point for annual raise deliberations, and locality pay has been carved out of the total amount enacted. For 2009, a 3.9 percent average raise has been enacted and it appears likely that the funds for 1 percentage point of that will be divided up as locality pay. For several years, a law mandating that military personnel get a half percentage point above the ECI number helped pull federal raises up to that amount in the name of pay parity. That law is now expired, but in most years since Congress has followed that formula anyway while continuing to set the military and federal raises at equal amounts.