The proposed 4.1 percent general schedule raise contained in the Transportation-Treasury
spending bill would in general apply to wage grade employees, although with some
twists. The bill would continue the long-standing practice of capping raises for wage
grade employees—who are under a separate locality system—at the average GS increase
for the year. That is, wage grade employees would get the lower of the GS average
amount, or the amount indicated for them by local wage studies. Assuming that part of
the general schedule raise would be parceled out as locality pay, for technical reasons the
“average” GS raise would work out to be slightly higher, on the order of about a tenth of
a percentage point, than the legislated figure. Also, wage grade employees get their raises
at differing times of a fiscal year, varying according to locality.