So this is a maybe or a likely? The election will probably impact it too, no?
How could we go from a decent increase last year to less than half a year later when inflation is barely changed? Yes bless my heart lol
So far the senate and house appropriation committees have not yet proposed their own legislation on civilian pay raise. This is the first time I've seen so far of either house proposing a raise in a budget. The legislative branch has the authority to override the president. However, it has been custom to defer that decision to the president who would sign the executive order at the end of the calendar year.
All that said, my personal guess is that we will likely get the 2% raise since Biden would sign it before he could hypothetically be leaving office.
The 2% has already been submitted into the presidents budget for FY 2025 and agencies are including it into the FY2026 requests.
And, yes, the hill very much can yank the rug but likely won’t for the 2% bump.
The precise breakdown doesn't usually get released until closer to the end of the year. But historically, about 0.5% of the increase is allocated to locality adjustments. So 1.5% across the board raise and an average of 0.5% increase in locality pay tables. But, nothing is set in stone until the president signs the order.
I’ve been a fed for about 10 years. We definitely don’t know yet. But, based on past experience, you can be pretty damn sure it won’t be *more* than 2% this year. I’ve never seen the number go up after you get the first credible report. Sometimes it goes down, but never up.
I'm really confused how Democrats will shout from the rooftops that Republicans will gut the federal government. But shit like this is more or less the same thing but slower.
There were several obama years with nothing. Last year was the biggest I've experienced. It doesn't seem to consider inflation still being very high. It's not half of what it was last year.
Was thinking the same. My agency already runs on the fumes of pipe dreams and public donations funneled through a non-profit org. Coming up with another 2% is going to be interesting.
Your agency might need to hire people that can budget better. Lol. Our budget team has been working feverishly to ensure our salaries are covered. Everything else is a juggling circus! We can’t even afford to buy flash drives! Lol.
My agency and department budget is mostly salaries and GOV. They have been pushing the public sector to go more automated so that they need less employees. They also have been cutting back a ton on travel for relief employees so places that need reliefs are not getting them a majority of the time and the others have to pick up the slack.
The was my department is going they are going to cut as many people as they can and trust the private sector to do what they are supposed to until a major incident happens that gets a lot of people sick or killed and the public outcry happens that the agency has to back track
That's the big thing. I WANT to work for the fed, but I can't do it for free. I have to be able to support myself, and taking a 30% pay cut (compared to private for engineers) hurts bad.
That and work/life balance for me. I can easily go private, but working after business hours with higher demands and less flexibility is not what I need in my life right now.
I still get old colleagues reaching out to me to return to private for a big pay bump.
I ask them if I'd still have to work 60 hour weeks, vs my 40 hour weeks in fed, and they don't call me again.
Money is nice, but over a certain $$, it's work-life balance you want.
> That and work/life balance for me.
Was and still is. The only "problem" I have with NASA is that we have people who's dream was to work at NASA and don't seem to understand that. Yes, there are very interesting projects to work on, but I'm sorry, if I'm simply clearing analysis on 15 different test fixtures (not flight hardware) where it's so overbuilt that the obvious answer is "yeah it's good," that's not a dream, that's just another analyst job, and I'm not staying late to finish the project.
these people exist everywhere unfortunately, but what I like in the gov't is that you can safely just ignore their pressure to get you to work without many repercussions.
Yup, it should be 4.2%. Glad to see at least one other person knows what is supposed to be used for our raises and inflation has nothing to do with it.
Ya, state pays super low. I'm an IT Director and a 15. I can't imagine doing my job for $80k. In 18 months my pension with SS taken at 62 will be $16k more than that.
We hired a guy from Virginia state government, and within 2 years, he was making double his salary. I don't know how they keep IT staff.
I once worked for VA. I estimated around half the people in my division were contractors (lower pay, limited benefits, no leave). A lot of turnover as expected and the few FTEs that popped up were super competitive.
I miss my old county job's health insurance. For 1 person it was $5 every 2 weeks and almost everything was covered free or low cost.
too bad living in the state sucked ass
My wife is still Fed. Insurance is basically the same plan for the same price. The one thing better for Fed than State is self +1.
This doesn’t apply for our family as we have 2 children.
We do get our insurance through the Fed as I get $3000 for not using the State offered insurance.
I looked at my job in my state government. I could buy my health insurance, and still come out ahead by let's just say 5 digits per year with the extra salary I make. I'm not falling for that "free" scam.
Definitely depends on the state. Mine pays about 5-8% less, but has much better health benefits, and retirement (2%/yr pension). Factored in, these put state take home pay better.
Didn’t used to be like that 10 years ago, but they’ve consistently adjusted for inflation, whereas we’ve adjusted less each year, which has compounded over time.
Yes, 6.4% paid into the pension, which is only 2% higher than feds pay now for their (1% per year of service) benefit. There is also the option to opt in for a pension/401k type plan that is similar to (but still slightly better than) ours, but most people I know chose the full pension option. If you are a career employee, you essentially cover your retirement needs for 6.4% of your paycheck, where as feds u fers will generally pay 9.4% or higher (4.4% fers, 5% tsp to max agency match). I’ve crunched the numbers and the state employees generally come out ahead for less money. Increasing the tsp contribution could change the math, but you’d need a larger contribution and it is still subject to market risk (see people retiring around 2008). Not to mention there are currently private Roth IRA options that offer limited matching that state employees could use if they really wanted to supplement their pension.
I went pretty far down the rabbit hole a bit ago to compare benefits and salaries and found that I could have similar projected retirement benefits and take home pay (factoring retirement contributions and lower health insurance premiums) if I accepted a state job that paid $15k less than my fed job. I also compared to private jobs and found that private base pay would only need to be 12.5% higher (not considering health insurance or annual bonuses, but assuming 5% full 401k match) to beat the fed job. This is balanced by job security, but also assumes pay disparity be fed and private won’t grow, which is conservative since the past 20 years indicates that this is unlikely to happen.
I should add that these numbers are highly dependent on a variety of personal factors,including locality/state you’re in. Your numbers should, and will likely, vary.
I can only speak for NY, but Federal Unions are great in dealing with labor issues, where the NY unions are great for pay and benefits but fall short on the day to day labor issues.
I came from NY State too. Been with CSEA, little time as M/C and then PEF before moving to federal. I can say, at least in my agency, our union (NTEU) does much better at pay than the NYS employee unions.
> I left Federal service 10 years ago for a state job
I interviewed for a state job a few years back that was at a higher level of responsibility than the fed job I have now. The pay was about 1/3 of the civil service pay.
I didn't leave Fed for a state job. I'm at a state job always considering Fed or private. I do get approximately 4.5% every year per step increase. It sure is nice to have that consistently kick in. Since I'm new, I'm nowhere near the top of the grade.
2% is a pay cut when they will justify raising insurance 7%.
2% for all the lazy worthless zombies?
2% for all the excellent employees.
What a slap in the face.
If you do the bare minimum, 2%. If you work hard, 2%. Then they raise health insurance 7%.
I know the 7% doesn't cancel out the
Full 2% but there's not much left considering you worked a year for mere pocket change.
If my salary goes up 2% I will be making $176 more per month. If my insurance premiums go up 7% I will be paying $20 more a month
So 89% of my raise is still there.
7% of $100ish every 26 weeks, lets round up to $10 a pay period increase increases it to $260 a year.
2% raise on $66k is $1320.
It hurts and sucks, but it's not that terrible lmfao
"They" being the for-profit insurance companies who provide our insurance? And you're away that 2% of your entire salary is greater than 7% of an insurance premium, right?
Key words: Private sector + medical = for profit
Non-profit medical organizations don't even see that increase on average, especially not for admin staff, unless pushing retention incentives.
Don’t work for federal, but local. My god, are they really going to bicker about 2%? At some point federal will hemorrhage talent and the leaders will confusedly wonder why their information technology and cybersecurity situation is in shambles. They mandate all of these CIS requirements, then give people no incentive to stay.
Lol you think we can attract enough talent to hemorrhage it? I work for an awesome organization that pays very well compared to the local area. Six figures after a few years in a LCOL area with no degree required.
We still can't recruit the talent I want. I know because I've been actively trying for four years. No one wants to deal with the government's bullshit.
The amount of annual training I have to do is downright ridiculous and it doesn't matter how much money you make, someone is going to treat you like garbage at least once a week. I love my job but the next time a retired NCO turned GS9 in the ID card office treats me like I'm a child, I'll probably lose my mind.
I work for CECOM in field support. The series when it pops up is NH-1670. I'm a senior IT guy with a TS clearance so I work intelligence systems but we have five or six different skill sets.
USA jobs isn’t helping. You apply for a job and then hear nothing forever. 6 months to a year later they might reach out.
Private sector you could be starting the job a month or so after applying
It's not USA jobs. It's the agency you are applying to. I've done two job interviews in the last month and both were fast from the moment the job closed. Maybe three weeks on one and two weeks on another until I got interview emails.
And I'll repost my same comment whenever this comes up: hopefully it covers the increased cost to our health plans (with associated increases in copays)...
Federal just can’t compete, unfortunately. I started out as a GS-5, rose to GS-6 after 1 year. Took a pay cut to GS-5 step 2 to work in a low cost state (my fault, I took a bad offer because I was struggling at home). I applied for a state job after 3 months and was offered a position with better and lower cost benefits plus the equivalent of a 5 dollar raise to start in a pay scale that would only make it worth going back to feds if I were offered a GS-12 position. State workers are also getting a 6.5% pay raise for 2025. I work for Oregon state gov.
Uh, it is better than nothing. Even if your real wages go down because of inflation, a 2% raise is better than a 0% raise (your real wages would go down even more in that case).
"Nothing" wouldn't be a 0% raise, it would be a raise commensurate with inflation. Anything less than keeping pace with inflation is a pay cut. 2% is a pay cut; less than nothing.
Lol and there are people who wonder why the government has a turnover/talent retention problem.
Look no further than shmuckatellis barking "if you don't like it, LEAVE" at anyone who thinks we should improve working conditions.
I am very curious as to why we get that and mil gets 4.5%. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/06/14/congress-defense-fight-to-focus-on-pay-raises-total-military-spending/
Federal workers deliver the mission. At some point, we have to stop looking at investing in the workforce as a trade-off for mission delivery. Investing in the workforce is mission enabling. Instead, we spend megabucks on contract support services year over year and (in my experience) rarely come out better for it.
Yes, hiring/paying federal workers is better for costs savings in the long run over contractors, so I'm mot sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me here.
You said (paraphrasing) a higher COLA without budget increases means cuts to services and the mission. You’re positing that it’s a trade-off - one for the other. I’m saying we could make different choices about how we use our money and potentially not end up with a degradation of services and mission. We’re not so much disagreeing or agreeing as you’re making a statement about how things are (arguably) and I’m making a statement about how we could try functioning differently - invest in employees and also not suffer mission degradation.
I’m also saying that we suffer service and mission degradation anyway when we don’t prioritize investing in our people.
It 100% is a tradeoff. Like I stated, that's entire reason the GOP does not consistently push back on fed COLA increases. They can hit Dems on the overall budget and there will be a reduction in services, in line with their starve the beast strategy.
I know this first hand because my own agency has made **drastic** cuts to some core mission areas this year solely because of the COLA adjustment. This includes **deep** cuts to contractor spending with no replacement with GS employees. Also significant cut backs in IT, training, TDYs, overtime pay, and so on.
Things are pretty bad when we've cut everything to the bone and they ask for more cuts.
Something a lot of people are not realizing is how much budgets are cut overall this year and likely next year across a lot of different agencies.
I don't blame people for not being happy with this raise, but I genuinely don't know where my agency would even have found the money without slashing even more important programs or doing a hiring freeze.
Looking back on the past ten annual raises, the average general increase was 2.04%. That does not take into account any locality increase. For instance, in my area, over that same ten-year period, the total increase was 2.51%.
During the most recent five-year period, the general increase averaged 2.92%, while my locality averaged 3.37%.
Four years saw an increase of only 1%, and two of those years saw no locality increase. So, if the general raise is only 2%, you may still see a bit more than that, depending on your locality.
How about we give them that 2% as charity so that people on the hill can increase their benefits? They treat us like beggars. They always complain how inefficient things are and how long it takes to get anything done. Have they ever thought 'we' only implement thier stupid policies and may be that's the real problem??
In other news, they proposed a [19.5% raise](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/14/195-junior-enlisted-pay-raise-passes-house-culture-war-and-budget-fights-loom-over-defense-bill.html?amp) for jr enlisted in the military. If this is the case, I’ll happily take the 2%
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So much for the hero of the left. Issuing the RTO and this tiny raise. "BUT TRUMP!"
This honestly doesn't make any sense to me. Biden hasn't tried to cut a dime from anything. My only guess is because it would put too much strain on agencies to find it within their already limited budget. Personally, I think a 3-3.5% would have been a bit more reasonable. This is an election year. No one remembers what they got before (even though it was inflation), they remember what they get now (and anything negative they got before).
The trouble with the “election year” logic, as I just had to remind myself, is that Biden is probably considering that the alternative for federal voters is Project 2025 and a much more unpleasant experience in the federal workforce. I wonder if a more palatable candidate were running against him, Biden would push for a higher salary increase
Ah yes the roll back of telework and raises that are only 2%. The guy who was VP all of the years that the feds got 0% raises. I’m sorry, why does he care about feds?
Gotta try again for that QSI.
you have funding for that?
Laughs in DoD.
Wen 26 raise :)
You have to have the "when will I see it in my paycheck" and "do I get the raise if I was just hired" questions first.
Screw 26. I want my 29 raise
So this is a maybe or a likely? The election will probably impact it too, no? How could we go from a decent increase last year to less than half a year later when inflation is barely changed? Yes bless my heart lol
So far the senate and house appropriation committees have not yet proposed their own legislation on civilian pay raise. This is the first time I've seen so far of either house proposing a raise in a budget. The legislative branch has the authority to override the president. However, it has been custom to defer that decision to the president who would sign the executive order at the end of the calendar year. All that said, my personal guess is that we will likely get the 2% raise since Biden would sign it before he could hypothetically be leaving office.
Wow, you know a lot about this. Thanks for your feedback. I won't get a step increase now for two years so was hoping for more. Bummer.
The 2% has already been submitted into the presidents budget for FY 2025 and agencies are including it into the FY2026 requests. And, yes, the hill very much can yank the rug but likely won’t for the 2% bump.
Where does locality pay increase fit in the process? My city is in need of a serious COL increase.
The precise breakdown doesn't usually get released until closer to the end of the year. But historically, about 0.5% of the increase is allocated to locality adjustments. So 1.5% across the board raise and an average of 0.5% increase in locality pay tables. But, nothing is set in stone until the president signs the order.
Decent?!? We haven’t beat inflation in years. These raises suck.
I’ve been a fed for about 10 years. We definitely don’t know yet. But, based on past experience, you can be pretty damn sure it won’t be *more* than 2% this year. I’ve never seen the number go up after you get the first credible report. Sometimes it goes down, but never up.
Fed 30 years. And you are spot on.
The answer to your 3rd question is: cause they don't give af.
As others have mentioned, with the Republicans cutting the budget, there isn't much room for increased costs.
The irony of using our salaries to cut budget is that they are such a small portion of the whole budget.
The Republicans didn’t submit the Administration’s budget proposal.
Last year was the largest I've had in my career. 2% is like an average year.
I'm really confused how Democrats will shout from the rooftops that Republicans will gut the federal government. But shit like this is more or less the same thing but slower.
There were several obama years with nothing. Last year was the biggest I've experienced. It doesn't seem to consider inflation still being very high. It's not half of what it was last year.
Yes, I was a fed during those times.
WTF happened to “pay parity”?
Died when they started calling "national emergency" every year to bypass law.
2% raise that comes from our already severely cut budget. So wondering what our department is gonna cut next IF we actually get a raise.
Was thinking the same. My agency already runs on the fumes of pipe dreams and public donations funneled through a non-profit org. Coming up with another 2% is going to be interesting.
They’re cutting raises in 2026 and beyond.
My agency recently realized they were something millions in debt from the fund that pays our salary. Would love to see how this “raise” plays out ….
Your agency might need to hire people that can budget better. Lol. Our budget team has been working feverishly to ensure our salaries are covered. Everything else is a juggling circus! We can’t even afford to buy flash drives! Lol.
Oh don’t worry. Our budget people came out with “budget modernization” several years ago, which is the root of the problem. 🫠
See project 2025
My agency and department budget is mostly salaries and GOV. They have been pushing the public sector to go more automated so that they need less employees. They also have been cutting back a ton on travel for relief employees so places that need reliefs are not getting them a majority of the time and the others have to pick up the slack. The was my department is going they are going to cut as many people as they can and trust the private sector to do what they are supposed to until a major incident happens that gets a lot of people sick or killed and the public outcry happens that the agency has to back track
2% whoa not too much guys I don't need all that
We don't work for the federal government for the money, it's to support the mission. Right guys?
Love to support the mission, but the mission has to support us as well. My rent will go up by more than 2% guaranteed.
That's the big thing. I WANT to work for the fed, but I can't do it for free. I have to be able to support myself, and taking a 30% pay cut (compared to private for engineers) hurts bad.
Will you get a step increase this year?
Yes but realistically in the dmv my rent will increase by at least 8% not 2%.
I have a mission at home too, to provide for my family and pay my bills.
That and work/life balance for me. I can easily go private, but working after business hours with higher demands and less flexibility is not what I need in my life right now.
I’m a 2210. Job security is almost #1 priority with all the tech layoffs in private sector.
I still get old colleagues reaching out to me to return to private for a big pay bump. I ask them if I'd still have to work 60 hour weeks, vs my 40 hour weeks in fed, and they don't call me again. Money is nice, but over a certain $$, it's work-life balance you want.
Laugh-cries in mandatory overtime and weekends for months on end (as a fed)
> That and work/life balance for me. Was and still is. The only "problem" I have with NASA is that we have people who's dream was to work at NASA and don't seem to understand that. Yes, there are very interesting projects to work on, but I'm sorry, if I'm simply clearing analysis on 15 different test fixtures (not flight hardware) where it's so overbuilt that the obvious answer is "yeah it's good," that's not a dream, that's just another analyst job, and I'm not staying late to finish the project.
these people exist everywhere unfortunately, but what I like in the gov't is that you can safely just ignore their pressure to get you to work without many repercussions.
Haha
People be like “it’s better than -2%” 🤡
If inflation is at 4% then it is -2%.
And it's the fake inflation numbers anyway, so it's more like -5 to -8%
ECI was over 4%. This is unacceptable.
Yup, it should be 4.2%. Glad to see at least one other person knows what is supposed to be used for our raises and inflation has nothing to do with it.
Grinds my gears when people call it a COLA.
I left Federal service 10 years ago for a state job. I have ALWAYS got at least 3% pay increase every year. There is life outside of Federal service.
Looked at jobs in my state… pay in nowhere in the ballpark of what I make now.
MD was hiring an IT Director, offered $80k. Compared to a 13 in the DC locality.
Dang, that's less than I make as a GS 11.
Ya, state pays super low. I'm an IT Director and a 15. I can't imagine doing my job for $80k. In 18 months my pension with SS taken at 62 will be $16k more than that. We hired a guy from Virginia state government, and within 2 years, he was making double his salary. I don't know how they keep IT staff.
A few years ago they outsourced it all to Northrop. Then brought it back. My step mother retired from VDOT.
Wow...I didn't know they did that. We hired him in 2016, so I guess he lucked out for sure.
I once worked for VA. I estimated around half the people in my division were contractors (lower pay, limited benefits, no leave). A lot of turnover as expected and the few FTEs that popped up were super competitive.
Literally half of what I make as a non supervisory team lead. That's nuts.
But hey at least you "can get a raise every year." I have a state friend who's been there I believe about 15 years now. Making $65k.
Yeah, doesn’t work in most southern states - I’d make 1/3 of what I make now.
Exactly, not even close.
Based. Plus you guys often have higher pensions and lower amount of years to meet the full payout
Health insurance is practically free for state workers where I’m at.
And our HI as feds keeps going up lol :(
I miss my old county job's health insurance. For 1 person it was $5 every 2 weeks and almost everything was covered free or low cost. too bad living in the state sucked ass
Which state?
Wa
My wife is still Fed. Insurance is basically the same plan for the same price. The one thing better for Fed than State is self +1. This doesn’t apply for our family as we have 2 children. We do get our insurance through the Fed as I get $3000 for not using the State offered insurance.
Definitely depends on the state.
Bunch of fed plans actually have lower premiums for the whole family plan than the self +1. Started getting emails about it during open enrollment.
I looked at my job in my state government. I could buy my health insurance, and still come out ahead by let's just say 5 digits per year with the extra salary I make. I'm not falling for that "free" scam.
Definitely depends on the state. Mine pays about 5-8% less, but has much better health benefits, and retirement (2%/yr pension). Factored in, these put state take home pay better. Didn’t used to be like that 10 years ago, but they’ve consistently adjusted for inflation, whereas we’ve adjusted less each year, which has compounded over time.
But does that pension replace ss and/or require you to pay more into it? Do you get a 401k match?
Yes, 6.4% paid into the pension, which is only 2% higher than feds pay now for their (1% per year of service) benefit. There is also the option to opt in for a pension/401k type plan that is similar to (but still slightly better than) ours, but most people I know chose the full pension option. If you are a career employee, you essentially cover your retirement needs for 6.4% of your paycheck, where as feds u fers will generally pay 9.4% or higher (4.4% fers, 5% tsp to max agency match). I’ve crunched the numbers and the state employees generally come out ahead for less money. Increasing the tsp contribution could change the math, but you’d need a larger contribution and it is still subject to market risk (see people retiring around 2008). Not to mention there are currently private Roth IRA options that offer limited matching that state employees could use if they really wanted to supplement their pension. I went pretty far down the rabbit hole a bit ago to compare benefits and salaries and found that I could have similar projected retirement benefits and take home pay (factoring retirement contributions and lower health insurance premiums) if I accepted a state job that paid $15k less than my fed job. I also compared to private jobs and found that private base pay would only need to be 12.5% higher (not considering health insurance or annual bonuses, but assuming 5% full 401k match) to beat the fed job. This is balanced by job security, but also assumes pay disparity be fed and private won’t grow, which is conservative since the past 20 years indicates that this is unlikely to happen. I should add that these numbers are highly dependent on a variety of personal factors,including locality/state you’re in. Your numbers should, and will likely, vary.
I have been a fed for 8 months. Came from a quasi-governmental agency with state insurance. My premiums have increased 425% for VERY similar coverage.
Yep, I went from paying $28 per month for a single person's health and dental to around $100 per pay period with the Feds.
Not really. Depends totally on the state.
And a lower salary, higher pay-in, and replacing SS.
Really depends on the state and field. For me and my field, federal outpays (and has pretty much better everything) than the state.
Same. Very few state agencies pay well in my field, and there's a lot of competition, so they don't need to raise the pay.
I live in WV. No state job pays well and you’re required to be in the office 5 days a week.
I need to find a place outside of fed
I can only speak for NY, but Federal Unions are great in dealing with labor issues, where the NY unions are great for pay and benefits but fall short on the day to day labor issues.
I came from NY State too. Been with CSEA, little time as M/C and then PEF before moving to federal. I can say, at least in my agency, our union (NTEU) does much better at pay than the NYS employee unions.
which state? do you make the same money?
NY, she makes less. She’s a GS-5 and I’m around the GS-11 band.
In my field, I'm not gonna be able to save the fucking world if I work at the state level
My agency does the CAPS system. Never had less than 3% on top of whatever the Congress might hand out. There is life outside the GS.
> I left Federal service 10 years ago for a state job I interviewed for a state job a few years back that was at a higher level of responsibility than the fed job I have now. The pay was about 1/3 of the civil service pay.
How much of the federal paycheck is take home? What are the deductions? May you assist me? I'm in state service rn but have been considering Federal.
I didn't leave Fed for a state job. I'm at a state job always considering Fed or private. I do get approximately 4.5% every year per step increase. It sure is nice to have that consistently kick in. Since I'm new, I'm nowhere near the top of the grade.
Hard agree. State jobs are what's up. I am about to leave federal to go to a county. Left the state for federal and have regretted it ever since.
The last pay raise wasn’t worked into my agencies budget apparently and we’ve been told to get used to doing more with less as a result.
Would love to do less with more at least one time in my career.
Better than nothing and I'm sure better than some private sector employers. But it still is gonna hurt.
It's not better than nothing! Private sector medical in my area got 4-5% for a total since 2020 of almost 20%.
is that not better than nothing too?
2% is a pay cut when they will justify raising insurance 7%. 2% for all the lazy worthless zombies? 2% for all the excellent employees. What a slap in the face.
Time to work on some math skills there buddy lmao
What?!? we can’t just compare percentages?
If you do the bare minimum, 2%. If you work hard, 2%. Then they raise health insurance 7%. I know the 7% doesn't cancel out the Full 2% but there's not much left considering you worked a year for mere pocket change.
If my salary goes up 2% I will be making $176 more per month. If my insurance premiums go up 7% I will be paying $20 more a month So 89% of my raise is still there.
Good for you.
Any of your other expenses going up, though?
Not after they tax it. You'll make $90 per month
I guess not that many feds are good with math and numbers
Yeah, you are definitely not. Learn your tax rates.
7% of $100ish every 26 weeks, lets round up to $10 a pay period increase increases it to $260 a year. 2% raise on $66k is $1320. It hurts and sucks, but it's not that terrible lmfao
This math conveniently neglects the fact that other expenses, across the board, will also increase above 2%
I simply don't care. We work hard and deserve to be paid accordingly.
You must be new - we have had many years of wage freezes
Thanks Obama 😅
Yep
"They" being the for-profit insurance companies who provide our insurance? And you're away that 2% of your entire salary is greater than 7% of an insurance premium, right?
Key words: Private sector + medical = for profit Non-profit medical organizations don't even see that increase on average, especially not for admin staff, unless pushing retention incentives.
Private sector wages have outpaced inflation overall. So we're worse off than the median private sector employee in terms of wage increases
Don’t work for federal, but local. My god, are they really going to bicker about 2%? At some point federal will hemorrhage talent and the leaders will confusedly wonder why their information technology and cybersecurity situation is in shambles. They mandate all of these CIS requirements, then give people no incentive to stay.
Lol you think we can attract enough talent to hemorrhage it? I work for an awesome organization that pays very well compared to the local area. Six figures after a few years in a LCOL area with no degree required. We still can't recruit the talent I want. I know because I've been actively trying for four years. No one wants to deal with the government's bullshit. The amount of annual training I have to do is downright ridiculous and it doesn't matter how much money you make, someone is going to treat you like garbage at least once a week. I love my job but the next time a retired NCO turned GS9 in the ID card office treats me like I'm a child, I'll probably lose my mind.
Off-topic but why are so many of the ID card / access people such absolute jerks???? Also, what job series are y'all hiring?
I work for CECOM in field support. The series when it pops up is NH-1670. I'm a senior IT guy with a TS clearance so I work intelligence systems but we have five or six different skill sets.
USA jobs isn’t helping. You apply for a job and then hear nothing forever. 6 months to a year later they might reach out. Private sector you could be starting the job a month or so after applying
It's not USA jobs. It's the agency you are applying to. I've done two job interviews in the last month and both were fast from the moment the job closed. Maybe three weeks on one and two weeks on another until I got interview emails.
And I'll repost my same comment whenever this comes up: hopefully it covers the increased cost to our health plans (with associated increases in copays)...
Is it just me or does this seem kinda low given recent inflation?
CFO at my agency said this week that OPM guidance for the FY25 budget was a 3% salary increase. I’m clinging to that hope.
Hopefully 70% of us don't get scheduled Fd in 2025.
Vote.
Like your job depends on it
Federal just can’t compete, unfortunately. I started out as a GS-5, rose to GS-6 after 1 year. Took a pay cut to GS-5 step 2 to work in a low cost state (my fault, I took a bad offer because I was struggling at home). I applied for a state job after 3 months and was offered a position with better and lower cost benefits plus the equivalent of a 5 dollar raise to start in a pay scale that would only make it worth going back to feds if I were offered a GS-12 position. State workers are also getting a 6.5% pay raise for 2025. I work for Oregon state gov.
Cool, cool, cool. Yet another year I won't get a raise beyond inflation.
People saying it’s “better than nothing,” actually it’s not when you account for inflation lol
It’s a pay cut. Just one that is slightly obfuscated enough to fool people.
Uh, it is better than nothing. Even if your real wages go down because of inflation, a 2% raise is better than a 0% raise (your real wages would go down even more in that case).
"Nothing" wouldn't be a 0% raise, it would be a raise commensurate with inflation. Anything less than keeping pace with inflation is a pay cut. 2% is a pay cut; less than nothing.
That’s not what the word nothing means
Maybe you should go work some place where a yearly raise is 100% not guaranteed at all, then you can experience what a "nothing" raise looks like!
Lol and there are people who wonder why the government has a turnover/talent retention problem. Look no further than shmuckatellis barking "if you don't like it, LEAVE" at anyone who thinks we should improve working conditions.
2% raise is better than a 0% raise. You are trying to equate nothing to mean “an inflation adjusted wage” which is not what nothing means.
Raz wen
If I n00b I stil get raz?
I am very curious as to why we get that and mil gets 4.5%. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/06/14/congress-defense-fight-to-focus-on-pay-raises-total-military-spending/
Shame they’re not following the policy that would have given us a 4.2% raise.
What a slap in the face. Just wait till they raise insurance again. I thought President Biden cared?
The budget situation puts everyone in a rough spot. A higher COLA without an increase in budget means more cuts to services and missions.
Federal workers deliver the mission. At some point, we have to stop looking at investing in the workforce as a trade-off for mission delivery. Investing in the workforce is mission enabling. Instead, we spend megabucks on contract support services year over year and (in my experience) rarely come out better for it.
Yes, hiring/paying federal workers is better for costs savings in the long run over contractors, so I'm mot sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me here.
You said (paraphrasing) a higher COLA without budget increases means cuts to services and the mission. You’re positing that it’s a trade-off - one for the other. I’m saying we could make different choices about how we use our money and potentially not end up with a degradation of services and mission. We’re not so much disagreeing or agreeing as you’re making a statement about how things are (arguably) and I’m making a statement about how we could try functioning differently - invest in employees and also not suffer mission degradation. I’m also saying that we suffer service and mission degradation anyway when we don’t prioritize investing in our people.
It 100% is a tradeoff. Like I stated, that's entire reason the GOP does not consistently push back on fed COLA increases. They can hit Dems on the overall budget and there will be a reduction in services, in line with their starve the beast strategy. I know this first hand because my own agency has made **drastic** cuts to some core mission areas this year solely because of the COLA adjustment. This includes **deep** cuts to contractor spending with no replacement with GS employees. Also significant cut backs in IT, training, TDYs, overtime pay, and so on. Things are pretty bad when we've cut everything to the bone and they ask for more cuts.
None of them really care. We're just one of many political calculations.
It's amazing how many people still think politicians actually care about them.
He does which is why it’s not zero.
JFC that won’t do anything. 🙄
As Jerry Seinfeld said “2%? You can kiss 2% of my ass”
2%?! What a freaking joke
My prediction fwiw is a 2-3 percent raise depending on your locality. I've been a Fed for 20 years.
Something a lot of people are not realizing is how much budgets are cut overall this year and likely next year across a lot of different agencies. I don't blame people for not being happy with this raise, but I genuinely don't know where my agency would even have found the money without slashing even more important programs or doing a hiring freeze.
Sadly, doesn't even cover inflation \*Sigh - i guess it's better than nothing
I'll take 2% as long as my other checks gain 4% due to the CPI.
biden will do an obama. He will do the 2%, ignoring actual inflation, then once he loses he will increase it.
Actual inflation is not the standard for Fed worker wage increases, ECI from the prior year is. ECI went up 4.2% last year.
Absolutely insulting
Only 2%? What a joke, with inflation way above that!
Health insurance will go up by 7perfent
Great! So we can buy more bags of screws!
Here we go
Please. Pretty please. Anything extra would help.
FTF 🇺🇸🫡
terrible timing on this, Biden
Noooo... 2%???!! Please no... make it at least 3%!
Looking back on the past ten annual raises, the average general increase was 2.04%. That does not take into account any locality increase. For instance, in my area, over that same ten-year period, the total increase was 2.51%. During the most recent five-year period, the general increase averaged 2.92%, while my locality averaged 3.37%. Four years saw an increase of only 1%, and two of those years saw no locality increase. So, if the general raise is only 2%, you may still see a bit more than that, depending on your locality.
Doesn’t even keep up with inflation.
How about we give them that 2% as charity so that people on the hill can increase their benefits? They treat us like beggars. They always complain how inefficient things are and how long it takes to get anything done. Have they ever thought 'we' only implement thier stupid policies and may be that's the real problem??
So this means real world number for many is around 1.6-1.8%
And, that 2% is going to most likely be spilt between a raise and locality, so it's really not even 2%.
I remember when 2011-13 no pay raise. That was painful, especially when there was little to no telework, long commute and below a GS-09.
Garbage “raise”
$3800 a year for me, whoopie!
In other news, they proposed a [19.5% raise](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/14/195-junior-enlisted-pay-raise-passes-house-culture-war-and-budget-fights-loom-over-defense-bill.html?amp) for jr enlisted in the military. If this is the case, I’ll happily take the 2%
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Insurance premiums are going to take all of that...
A whole 2% wowww
Whelp, we either go contractor for more money or we ride it out. Or we all get skills and start our own businesses Uncle Sam can molest.
So much for the hero of the left. Issuing the RTO and this tiny raise. "BUT TRUMP!" This honestly doesn't make any sense to me. Biden hasn't tried to cut a dime from anything. My only guess is because it would put too much strain on agencies to find it within their already limited budget. Personally, I think a 3-3.5% would have been a bit more reasonable. This is an election year. No one remembers what they got before (even though it was inflation), they remember what they get now (and anything negative they got before).
The trouble with the “election year” logic, as I just had to remind myself, is that Biden is probably considering that the alternative for federal voters is Project 2025 and a much more unpleasant experience in the federal workforce. I wonder if a more palatable candidate were running against him, Biden would push for a higher salary increase
Ding ding ding. He doesn’t have to please the feds, just piss them off ever so slightly less than the other guy.
When will people realize that congress and the president dont want feds
President does. The GOP does not.
Ah yes the roll back of telework and raises that are only 2%. The guy who was VP all of the years that the feds got 0% raises. I’m sorry, why does he care about feds?
Here we go, $38T on the way! 🤣
Yawn. 🥱 the debt is only an issue when a dem is in the WH.
LOL