Pay Raises, Caps are Intertwined

While pay caps commonly affect employees in senior pay systems such as the SES, the effect on GS employees is a relatively new phenomenon. In most years, executive schedule rates do rise, but often at a lower rate than those for GS employees who also get locality pay raises, and thus the gap has been narrowing. In addition, there have been years in which executive schedule rates are frozen, since those rates are tied to pay for members of Congress, who for political reasons sometimes refuse to accept what would otherwise be an automatic raise for themselves. When that happens, executive schedule rates typically are not increased either, although there have been exceptions. Congressional leaders have indicated that Congress will not accept a raise for 2010, and while the fate of the executive schedule increase is not settled, a strong precedent for freezing those rates was set earlier this year when the White House froze pay for all appointees working there who make more than $100,000. Early indicators are that the average GS raise in January will be 3.4 percent.