Top-Level Raise Usually Goes Through

By: fedweek

Although pay for members of Congress and other top-level officials always is a political issue, in the 17 years since the current arrangement was created, the raise at those levels—and, thus, a lifting of pay caps—has gone through 11 times. The raise was blocked each year from 1994-1999 with the exception of 1998, a period that led to complaints about pay compression among top career executives and their underlings since in each year, by denying itself a pay raise Congress also froze pay at the executive schedule rates used for pay-capping purposes. After that, the raise went through each year until this year, when Congress denied a raise for itself but let raises for others take effect.