The latest overall pay gap calculation returns the number closer to the range of the several years before it jumped by nearly 3.5 percentage points in last year’s report from the 24.09 percent reported in 2022. Image: Hyejin Kang/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffFederal employees now lag private sector employees in comparable jobs in pay by 24.72 percent on average, according to the latest figures from the Federal Salary Council—down from the 27.54 percent average it reported last autumn—following the average 5.2 percent average raise paid at the start of this year.
The overall pay gap number, based on Labor Department data, is used by federal employee organizations and friendly members of Congress in arguing for substantial annual raises in order to keep the government competitive as an employer. That was the case again earlier this year when they advocated for an 8.7 percent boost to follow the 5.2 percent increase, which was the largest in more than four decades.
However, the January 2025 raise almost certainly will average 2 percent, split as a 1.7 percent across-the-board raise with funds for the other 0.3 percentage point used for variable locality pay—yielding raises ranging by locality from slightly above to slightly below 2 percent.
The statistical report issued at the council’s annual meeting this week also specifies pay gaps by GS locality areas that are used in determining specific raises for the city-based zones, Alaska and Hawaii (which are localities in their entirety) and the catchall “rest of the U.S.” locality for other areas.
The council’s findings are passed on to a higher-level group, the President’s Pay Agent, which then makes recommendations to the White House. Figures by locality typically are released as part of an executive order finalizing the raises near year’s end. The council reiterated an earlier recommendation to the Pay Agent to expand the boundaries of many localities, which would yield an additional pay boost to some 15,000 employees by moving them out of the “RUS” locality into a city area with higher pay, potentially as soon as January.
The council, consisting of officials from federal unions and administration appointees, also backed creating new localities in the Kennewick-Richland-Walla Walla, Wash., and the Syracuse-Auburn, N.Y. areas, similarly boosting pay for about 4,400 employees in those areas, although they might not take effect until 2026.
The latest overall pay gap calculation returns the number closer to the range of the several years before it jumped by nearly 3.5 percentage points in last year’s report from the 24.09 percent reported in 2022.
Under the law creating the GS locality system, locality raises large enough to virtually close the pay gap were to have been paid by now. However, raises large enough to accomplish that never have been paid, due to a combination of funding restrictions and lack of confidence in the numbers—even though they are the government’s official word on the matter, produced under a formula set by that law.
Other comparisons using different methodologies have produced different results, most notably several CBO reports that focus on comparisons by educational level. The most recent of those, issued earlier this year, showed federal employees on average at a 10 percent disadvantage, compared with 3 percent in a similar 2017 report.
Within that average, it said, federal employees with a high school diploma or less had a 17 percent advantage and those with some college a 12 percent advantage; those with a bachelor’s degree, federal employees had a 10 percent disadvantage; those with a master’s a 17 percent disadvantage; and those with a professional degree or doctorate a 29 percent disadvantage.
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