The overall pay gap number, based on Labor Department data, forms the basis the council’s annual recommendations on pay. Image: Twenty-four_Photos/Shutterstock.com
Federal employees lag private sector employees in comparable jobs in salary by 24.09 percent, according to the latest figures from the Federal Salary Council, up from the 22.47 percent it reported just months ago.
The prior report was essentially a catch-up from last year since the council did not conduct its traditional annual meeting last fall because the White House had not appointed or reappointed members at the time. The group consists of representatives from federal employee unions and White House appointees with backgrounds in federal pay issues who were named earlier this year.
The overall pay gap number, based on Labor Department data, forms the basis the council’s annual recommendations on pay to a higher-level group, the President’s Pay Agent, which then makes recommendations to the White House. Federal employee organizations and their supporters in Congress cite the number in arguing for larger annual raises, although controversy over the methodology has continued for years.
The council also produces salary comparisons by GS locality, which are then used in allocating the among them the portion of the annual raise devoted to locality pay.
At its meeting last week the council repeated recommendations it had made at its previous meeting to create new localities as soon as January for the Fresno, Spokane, Reno and Rochester, N.Y. areas. That would boost salary rates for some 16,200 employees by moving them out of the catchall “rest of the U.S. locality” for locations outside the city areas with their own rates, which is the lowest-paid.
That kind of increase also would apply to some 16,700 others through loosening the rules on attaching outlying areas to existing localities and by adopting recent changes to the metropolitan area definitions that used in the locality pay program. At its latest meeting the council further made a new recommendation to add Jefferson and Clallam Counties in Washington to the Seattle locality, affecting another 300 employees working there.
While the January 2023 federal employee pay raise is not yet definite, it most likely will consist of a 4.1 percent across the board increase, with funds equivalent to another 0.5 percent raise divided up as locality pay. That would result in raises ranging from several tenths of a percentage point above 4.6 in the localities with the largest reported gaps to several tenths below 4.6 in the “rest of the U.S.” locality and several others where the reported gaps are below the average.
Whether the council’s recommendation to create and broaden localities can be carried out in time for the January raise is questionable, however, since the Pay Agent would have to first approve them and then a rule-making process would be needed. The last two times new localities were created and existing ones expanded, that process took a number of months—in this case potentially pushing off the changes until the January 2024 raise.
The council did not make any recommendations at its latest meeting for adding or expanding localities for 2024.
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