Pay Gap Holds Steady Overall, Varies Widely among Areas

The Federal Salary Council has concluded that federal employees on average earn 34.9 percent less than their private sector counterparts, almost the same as the 35.2 percent figure reported last year. The gap is the largest in the Washington, San Francisco and San Diego areas, around 50 percent each, and the smallest in the catchall “rest of the U.S.” pay zone at 14 percent. The council–an advisory body of union officials and labor-management experts–produced those figures at its annual meeting and recommended those raises to a higher-level body–the President’s Pay Agent, consisting of the heads of OPM, OMB and Labor–which then reports to the President. However, it’s virtually certain that the 2016 raise will be 1.3 percent on average, with slight variations among localities. Unless Congress acts otherwise, there is to be a 1 percent across the board raise and the funds for the other 0.3 percent will be parceled out among what will be 44 city zones–including 13 new ones being created–plus the separate localities for both Alaska and Hawaii and the RUS locality. The creation of the new areas, and the addition of more outlying counties to 21 of the pre-existing 31 localities, will mean an additional raise for roughly 110,000 employees who will move out of the RUS locality into a higher-paying metropolitan area locality.