Pay Gap Averages 17.5 Percent

According to a recent report by the President’s Pay Agent, as of March 2003 the pay gap between private sector and federal general schedule pay-a gap that the GS locality pay system was to have virtually closed by now-averaged 17.48 percent. That included a range of from 28.31 percent in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose locality to 13.36 percent in the catchall “rest of U.S.” locality that covers areas outside metropolitan statistical zones. In other words, only 44 percent of the “target” disparity has been closed on average. The numbers don’t include the effect of 2004 raises. The group estimated that closing the gaps would cost an additional $8 billion over the current baseline of spending on federal pay. The price tag is a main reason why the federal pay law has not been implemented as originally designed, although members of both parties also have questioned the methods used to compute the gap.