Federal Job Grades
Was interested in looking deeper after stumbling upon a Federal Job posting since they listed various GS grades tied to experience. Upon seeing the table, they also included the percent increase and location adjustment. Interesting!
This is post is a small case study on a few items regarding GS. Going to compare at GS-14 across localities for IT services field to normalize Grade and Role differences in pay scale.
26 Replies
stormy-gold•5mo ago
So at GS-14 pay is $104k S1 to $136k S10 for the general table.
stormy-gold•5mo ago
For SF Metro GS-14 is $152k S1 to cap of $192k for S10. The cap implies that at high enough grades working in HCOL may result is less pay than you can get elsewhere.
stormy-gold•5mo ago
The 45.41% roughly correlates to the amount above the base index. Wonder if there's negatives out there for LCOL areas?
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Bottom COL States are so let's check one of those.
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Nope, that guess was wrong. even Kansas has a positive Locality of Payment percentage.
GS-14 124k S1 to 161k S10
stormy-gold•5mo ago
So is there a summarized list of different Locality Adjustments?
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Yes it appears there is and you can see what's been recommended for the next year
stormy-gold•5mo ago
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Further on they provide an example, which shows a comparison of Federal Salary to Non-Federal Salary for various grades weighted by the amount of people working in that metro
stormy-gold•5mo ago
They even record a history of GS pay decisions. Looks like POTUS used an EO to implement a 5.2% increase YOY for base salary + locality adjustment
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Last item is the full Appendix 1 table from the Federal Salary Council
stormy-gold•5mo ago
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Highlighting the top and bottom three Localities and also noting how much of the DC area is a tax dollar sponge that almost rivals the "rest of US" category.
So if "par" is 52% then the top locality SF is 99% - 52% = 47% which matches the 46% cited earlier for Locality adjustment above the base. Glad it's following intuitively.
However, if you are in Indiana, the locality adjustment doesn't quite match up. 52% - 33% = 19%. But the locality doesn't match. So probably something else going on.
At the end of the day, I'm assumption is that the pay increase recommended as been capped to 5%. However, with such large disparities in some areas of 109% vs 99%, that 5% is going to fall more behind the non-federal level.
For the individual, if you have the option to choose where you live, then I would want to target an area where the pay disparity is low or close to the 5% mark so that the annual pay raises would be in line with the market.
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Using the logic, there's one metro area where you can actually gain on non-federal salaries, and that's Corpis-Christi, TX
stormy-gold•5mo ago
GS-14 S1 123k S10 160k.
stormy-gold•5mo ago
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Hmm, not many more takeaway IMO, so going to leave it here for now.
Here's the site I was using for COL per state which doesn't really line up with the Localities exactly for Federal Salary. Definitely possible Salary COL arbatriage opportunities for people working Federal Jobs. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state
unwilling-turquoise•5mo ago
GS 14 is pretty up there though, so what’s actually required to even get GS-14 as an initial salary?
stormy-gold•5mo ago
Dunno. It was like maybe senior IC your of stuff
optimistic-gold•5mo ago
Most GS-14 and up roles are filled internally, despite advertising externally.
You'd have to come in as a GS-12 or 13 and bank some time
unwilling-turquoise•5mo ago
How much time on average?
optimistic-gold•5mo ago
It depends, and my data points are too sparse to give you an answer - unironically Reddit /fednews and /USA jobs would know
Some of them seem remote from what I saw
I guess there’s nothing against OE’ing with federal jobs?
stormy-gold•4mo ago
that's correct. as per usual, our best practices is, "don't lie to the government" when it comes to OE.
Yup. Are you considering it? The retirement pension seems quite nice
stormy-gold•4mo ago
Nope already have my glide path set
https://discord.com/channels/1181304501999784027/1181316830577561630/1205288280392863835