Locality Pay Split Also at Issue

Another question to be decided is the split between the across-the-board components and the locality components of the total raise. The practice in recent years has been to designate the figure indicated by the employment cost index measure of private sector wage growth as across-the-board pay and designate anything above that as locality pay. If that practice were followed for a 4.1 percent raise in 2003, 2.6 percentage points would be paid across-the-board (meaning it would apply to all general schedule employees, even those not eligible for locality pay such as those working overseas) and the money value of the other 1.5 percentage points would be divided up as locality pay, with urban areas with the tightest labor markets getting higher amounts and less competitive markets and the catchall “rest of the U.S.” getting less.