Pay Law Would Require Bigger Boost

Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service has issued a report showing that a significantly larger raise would be needed if underlying federal pay law were followed—which it hasn’t been in more than a decade. According to CRS, complying with a 1990 pay law’s requirements for across-the-board and locality raises would result in raises averaging 8.64 percent, and ranging from 3.13 percent in the “rest of the U.S.” locality (areas outside the designated metropolitan zones) to 18.27 percent in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose locality, and including 13.7 percent in the locality with the largest number of federal employees, the Washington-Baltimore locality. However, the CRS noted that the President’s Pay Agent, the executive branch’s highest pay advisory body, has recommended against paying the full raises, estimating the added costs at more than $5 billion a year.