Various bills moving in Congress have left considerable uncertainty as to the size of the January 2010 federal raise. The full House could vote as soon as this week on its version of the general government appropriations bill that by remaining silent on the raise would set an average GS increase of 2 percent, the figure requested by President Obama. The counterpart Senate bill would set the raise at 2.9 percent. Congress earlier this year endorsed parity between federal civilian and military raises, and the DoD authorization bills of both the House and Senate would set the military raise at 3.4 percent. However, language in an appropriations bill—which contains the actual money for raises—would trump the pay parity language, which was contained in a budget guidance measure that is not signed into law.
