UPDATED:  June 4, 2021

NEW: White House Proposes 2.7% Pay Raise for 2022
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How Does the GS Pay Scale Work?

The General Schedule (GS) pay system (or “GS Pay Scale“) includes about 1.5 million federal employees in civilian white-collar jobs.  The jobs are widely in clerical, administrative, professional and technical positions.

How Many Pay Grades and are in the GS Pay Scale?

The General Schedule includes 15 different pay grades.  Each job is classified by the federal agency based on the qualifications required as well as the level of responsibility and difficulty to preform in the position.  Educational backgrounds for the grades are generally as follows:

GS-2 positions:  high school diploma and no additional experience
GS-5 positions:  college Bachelor’s degree
GS-9 positions:  Master’s degree

How Do You Move Up Steps in the GS Pay Scale?

Each of the 15 pay grades has 10 step rates (steps 1-10).  Movement up to the next step (known as “within-grade step increases”) is based on acceptable job performance and varying periods of longevity as follows:

• 1 year at steps 1-3
• 2 years at steps 4-6
• 3 years at steps 7-9

In terms of salary difference, each step is worth about 3% of the federal employee’s salary.

When Will There Be a 2022 Government Pay Raise?

The GS base pay schedule is usually adjusted annually each January with an across-the-board federal pay increase based on nationwide changes in the cost of wages and salaries of private industry workers. Most GS employees are also entitled to locality pay, which is a geographic-based percentage rate that reflects pay levels for non-federal workers in certain geographic areas as determined by surveys conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What are the Current GS Locality Pay Areas?

There are currently more than 40 locality pay areas, which cover the lower 48 States and Washington, DC, plus Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories and possessions. Most of the locality pay areas cover large metropolitan areas (e.g., Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC), two cover entire States—Alaska and Hawaii, and the remainder of the United States and its territories and possessions are included in the catch-all Rest of U.S. (RUS) locality pay area. GS employees in foreign areas are not eligible for locality pay. The President and Congress may make changes in the otherwise applicable across-the-board and locality pay adjustments.

OPM may approve special rates which are higher than the normal GS rates due to difficulties in staffing certain occupations at GS grade levels in certain geographic areas.

LATEST NEWS ON 2021 GS PAY SCALE:

2021 Federal Pay Raise Finalized in Executive Order

2021 Federal Pay Freeze Proposed by Senate Appropriations Committee -  The Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday proposed a pay freeze for federal employees in 2021 as part of its appropriations bill

White House Proposes Reduction in Federal Retirement Benefits and 1% Pay Raise in 2021

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2020 Federal Pay Raise Finalized in Executive Order and official OPM pay tables now available (click here)

President Donald Trump signed two spending bills into law Friday, Dec. 20, 2020 which included a 3.1% average federal pay raise for the civilian workforce in 2020— the largest federal pay increase in a decade.  The federal employee pay increase contains an across-the-board 2.6% pay raise plus an average 0.5% increase in locality pay.

The 2020 GS Pay Scale tables will be published on this page after the White House issues an executive order to the Office of Personnel Management.  This normally occurs in the last few days of December each year.

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Latest News on 2020 GS Pay Scale:

• Federal Employees Could Get Largest Pay Raise in 10 Years (December 17, 2019)
• White House Recommends 2.6% Federal Pay Raise for 2020
• Pay Freeze and Federal Retirement Benefit Cuts Proposed in 2020 White House Budget
• Lawmakers Propose 3.6% Federal Pay Raise in 2020

President Signs Executive Order Implementing 2019 Federal Pay Raise

President Trump signed an executive order March 28 implementing the 2019 federal pay raise after employees waited for more than a month for the retroactive increase.

The 2019 federal pay raise included 1.4 percent across-the-board, and another 0.5 percent toward locality pay. The pay increase overturned a pay freeze that had already been enacted.

The raise is retroactive to the first pay period in 2019, which for many civilian employees was January 6.

OPM Releases Updated 2019 GS Pay Scale Tables

• Click here for the OPM's official 2019 GS Pay Scale Tables

The pay freeze does not affect military personnel. Members of the military services will receive a 2.6 percent raise in 2019.

SEE ALSO:  2019 Federal Retiree COLA (CSRS, FERS, Social Security)

2019 Locality Pay

According to a final rule published in the Federal Register Dec. 7, the new 2019 General Schedule (GS) locality pay areas are:

• Birmingham, Alabama
• Burlington, Vermont
• Corpus Christi, Texas
• Omaha, Nebraska
• San Antonio, Texas
• Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Virginia

The final regulations also establish McKinley County, NM, as an area of application to the Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Las Vegas, NM, locality pay area; establish San Luis Obispo County, CA, as an area of application to the Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA, locality pay area; and make minor clarifying changes to the names of two locality pay areas (the Albany-Schenectady, NY-MA locality pay area and the Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-ME locality pay area).

The changes in locality pay area definitions are applicable on the first day of the first pay period beginning on or after January 1, 2019.