Job Description

President Signs Order Giving Civilian Fed Workers 5.2% Raise

President Joe Biden signing an executive order in the Oval Office. (White House office)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday signed an executive order fulfilling his promise to provide civilian federal workers with an average 5.2% pay raise starting in mid-January.

Biden had proposed the bump in salaries in the 2024 budget proposal he released last March.

According to data published by the Office of Personnel Management last night, the increase represents a roughly 4.7% across-the-board pay increase, which will be bolstered further by an average 0.5% increase in locality pay.

Though often thought of as a cost of living adjustment for employees living in various parts of the country, locality pay is actually based on a comparison of wages for federal versus non-federal employees in similar occupations, who live in the same geographic region.

Biden also signed the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, which will raise the pay for military service personnel by an average of 5.2% next year.

The average pay increases represent the largest pay hikes for federal civilian workers since the Carter administration, when the former president gave them an average increase of 9.1% during his final months in office.

A number of workers — about 33,300 of them — will also benefit next year from recent changes in the locality pay system.

Those changes include the creation of four new locality pay areas, as well as the expansion of some already existing areas.

The new areas are:

• Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California.

The new general schedule pay tables are located here .

The affected federal workers can expect to start seeing the changes reflected in their paychecks for the first full pay period of 2024, which for most begins Jan. 14.

Last year, Federal News Network published a helpful formula that enables employees to calculate their actual pay raise.

The steps are as follows:

• First, multiply your current base salary by this year’s base pay raise percentage.
• Next, add the result from step 1 to your current base salary.
• Then multiply the result from step 2 by this year’s locality pay raise percentage for your locality pay area.
• Finally, add the result from step 3 to your answer from step 2 (rounding up).

WASHINGTON — Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., a longtime advocate of workers’ rights, introduced a bill this week that would exempt... Read More

WASHINGTON — Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., a longtime advocate of workers’ rights, introduced a bill this week that would exempt an estimated 6 million tipped workers across the United States from paying income tax on the tips they receive. Titled the Tipped Income Protection and Standards... Read More

WASHINGTON — A new policy paper from the New Democrat Coalition in the House assesses a number of barriers to... Read More

WASHINGTON — A new policy paper from the New Democrat Coalition in the House assesses a number of barriers to the growth of the U.S. labor market and offers suggestions for how Congress can address them. Called the “New Dems’ Job Action Plan,” the 16-page paper... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — America's employers posted fewer job openings in July than they had the previous month, a sign that... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — America's employers posted fewer job openings in July than they had the previous month, a sign that hiring could cool in the coming months. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that there were 7.7 million open jobs in July, down from 7.9 million in... Read More

WASHINGTON — Civilian employees of the federal government would see a 2% pay increase in 2025 under a plan President... Read More

WASHINGTON — Civilian employees of the federal government would see a 2% pay increase in 2025 under a plan President Joe Biden sent to Congress on Friday. Transmission of the so-called “alternative plan for pay adjustments” is the first step in finalizing pay increases for all... Read More

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of Federal Trade Commission employees are working from home this month after Legionella bacteria were found in... Read More

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of Federal Trade Commission employees are working from home this month after Legionella bacteria were found in their Washington, D.C., headquarters. They were sent home as the General Services Administration continues tests on federal buildings it manages throughout the nation’s capital. About a... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The great inflation spike of the past three years is nearly spent — and economists credit American consumers for... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The great inflation spike of the past three years is nearly spent — and economists credit American consumers for helping slay it. Some of America's largest companies, from Amazon to Disney to Yum Brands, say their customers are increasingly seeking cheaper alternative products and services,... Read More

Job Tags

Similar Jobs