More than 9,000 general schedule employees are now up against a pay cap, spread across half of the 32 GS pay localities, according to a recent report for Congress, and if trends continue substantially more could be affected in 2010 and beyond. The report noted that some employees at GS-15 in the highest-paid locality, the San Francisco locality, have been affected by the cap of executive schedule level IV (currently $153,200) since 2002, and by 2012, employees at the top levels of GS-14 might be affected there, as well. In most currently affected localities, only steps 10 or steps 9 and 10 of the GS-15 level currently are affected, but in the San Francisco area the cap reaches as low as step 6. Employees at the top levels of GS-15 in several more localities likely will be affected next year, depending on the final size of the GS and executive schedule raises. The capping means that employees haven’t received the full raises to which they otherwise would be entitled, which CRS said "effectively eliminates for these employees the locality-based pay diversification that was contemplated" by federal pay law. In addition, it noted, the caps affect their retirement benefits by producing a lower "high-three" salary year basis on which their annuities will be calculated.