Federal Workers in Select U.S. Cities Could Receive Pay Raise

Federal workers in select cities in the U.S. may receive a tidy bump in pay early next year.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the Federal Salary Council are adding 13 metropolitan areas to their existing list of cities where federal workers’ salaries are determined by local market conditions, such as comparable private sector pay and cost-of-living.

The American Federation of Government Employees and the Federal Salary Council have spent years lobbying for the inclusion of additional cities in order to “make federal salaries more sensitive to local market criteria,” the union announced in a recent blog post.

The new additions are: Albany, New York; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina.; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Davenport, Iowa; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Missouri; Laredo, Texas; Las Vegas; Palm Bay, Florida; St. Louis, Missouri; and Tucson, Arizona.

Come January 2016, federal workers in those cities should get a salary that is comparable to the market conditions in those metropolitan areas.

This is good news for many federal employees who have dealt with pay freezes and employment instability because of legislative conflicts among Democrats and Republicans and the White House.

“AFGE has been leading the fight for several years to provide federal employees in these cities with salaries that are more closely aligned with regional standards,” the union stated in the blog post. “We are delighted that the administration has supported this initiative and come through with its commitment to have the new localities in place starting next year.”

The union also published a helpful FAQ on this pay adjustment.

In addition, OPM will publish the adjustments and other wage scale data on its website.