2024 Official GS Pay Schedule Released - FederalPay.org

Congress recessed this week (Dec 18 – Dec 22, 2023) without passing legislation regarding federal employee salaries. This clears the way for Biden’s recommended pay plan which will take effect on January 1, 2024.

Under Biden’s plan there will be 4.7% across-the-board pay raise plus an average of 0.59% locality increase depending upon where you work. This gives a total 2024 GS pay raise of 5.29%.

This pay raise impacts all federal employees including those on the GS pay scale, LEO, SES, ES, Federal Wage Grade, Pay Bands, and other federal pay systems. There are nearly 2 million civilian US federal employees – most are on the GS pay scale.

There are 4 new locality areas added in 2024:

• Fresno, CA
• Reno, NV
• Rochester, NY
• Spokane, WA

The San Francisco locality area received the largest locality increase of 1.26%. The “Rest of U.S.” locality area received a 0.32% locality increase (in addition to the across-the-board 4.7% raise).

In addition, several existing locality areas were expanded. This gives federal employees in the newly covered regions a significantly higher pay raise. For example, the Boston locality area was expanded to include parts of Vermont that were previously under the Rest of U.S. locality area. Employees in those particular Boston suburbs will see a pay increase of 15.15% on top of the 4.7% base increase.

Based on our analysis, 275 counties were moved from the lower “Rest of U.S.” locality area to a higher area.

The largest pay increase this year will go to federal employees located in Calaveras County, CA; Merced County, CA; and Stanislaus County, CA. These counties were added to the San Fransisco, CA locality area.

Employees in those 3 counties will see their pay increase a total of 33.61% in 2024 (28.91% locality adjustment increase plus 4.7% base increase). Based on our research, there are approximately 500-1000 federal employees in those 3 counties. Most of the employees are in the Federal Prison System, Social Security Administration, or Veterans Health Administration.

The maps below give you a visualization of how locality areas were expanded in 2024. See the live 2024 locality map here.

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