Federal Employee Salaries

How much are federal employees who work for the United States federal government paid, and how do their pay systems work? How can you find individual federal employees’ salaries by name for 2021 and other fiscal years?

FedSmith has compiled an overview of the major pay systems in the federal government and federal employee pay raises as well as information on performing federal employee salary lookups.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the federal agency tasked with providing leadership on pay administration for civilian federal employees.

Contents

Find Individual Federal Employee Salaries by Name

Did you know that the salaries of individual federal employees is public information and there are ways to look up the salaries of individual federal employees online? For complete details, see this article: How to Find Federal Employees’ Salaries by Name.

Pay Raises for Federal Employees

By law, Congress and the president determine how much, if any, pay raise federal employees get in a given year. Because it is determined by a political process, it is more complex and confusing than one might assume.

Federal employees received a 2.7% across-the-board pay increase for 2022.

To see how federal employees have fared with their raises under both political parties, see our article: 50 Years of Federal Pay: Democrats v. Republicans.

Although they are often confused as being the same thing, the annual pay raise for federal employees is different from the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) calculation for federal retirees.

For complete details on the pay raise process, see How is the Annual Federal Employee Pay Raise Determined?.

GS Pay Scale

As noted above, the General Schedule (GS) pay system covers the majority of civilian white-collar federal workers employed in professional, technical, administrative, and clerical positions.

There are 15 GS grades establishing base annual salaries that run from 1 (lowest) to 15 (highest). The grade of each job is established by the employing agency based on the level of difficulty, responsibility and required qualifications. Typically, individuals would qualify within the GS grades along these general lines:

  • GS-2: Individuals with no additional experience and a high school diploma
  • GS-5: Individuals with a bachelor’s degree
  • GS-9: Individuals with a master’s degree

Within-Grade Increases (WGI)

Each GS grade has 10 step rates (steps 1-10) and employees can move to higher steps throughout their federal careers. Within-grade increases (WGI) as they are called are based on an acceptable level of performance and longevity (waiting periods of 1 year at steps 1-3, 2 years at steps 4-6, and 3 years at steps 7-9). 

Each WGI amounts to a salary increase of about 3% of an employee’s salary. In effect, a WGI is a pay raise based on the length of time in government service at a particular step and grade in the General Schedule’s pay system.

GS Pay Scale 2022

The GS pay tables are published annually by OPM at the start of each year. The latest one of the annual GS base pay rates is included below.

GradeStep 1Step 2Step 3Step 4Step 5Step 6Step 7Step 8Step 9Step 10WGI
120172208492151922187228572324923913245812460825234VARIES
222682232222397324608248862561826350270822781428546VARIES
324749255742639927224280492887429699305243134932174825
427782287082963430560314863241233338342643519036116926
5310833211933155341913522736263372993833539371404071036
6346493580436959381143926940424415794273443889450441155
7385033978641069423524363544918462014748448767500501283
8426414406245483469044832549746511675258854009554301421
9470974866750237518075337754947565175808759657612271570
10518645359355322570515878060509622386396765696674251729
11569835888260781626806457966478683777027672175740741899
12682997057672853751307740779684819618423886515887922277
13812168392386630893379204494751974581001651028721055792707
1495973991721023711055701087691119681151671183661215651247643199
151128901166531204161241791279421317051354681392311429941467573763

Locality Pay

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. There are currently 47 locality pay areas.

Additional GS Pay Resources

Wage Grade Pay Scale (FWS)

The Federal Wage System (FWS) (a.k.a. wage grade) was developed to make the pay of Federal blue-collar workers comparable to prevailing private sector rates in each local wage area. It is a partnership between OPM, other federal agencies and labor organizations. The goal of the FWS is to pay employees according to local prevailing rates and covers most trade, craft, and laboring employees in the executive branch.

Additional Wage Grade Pay Resources

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