Federal Pay
How well do government jobs pay? Usually the short answer is: pretty well. Unlike salaries for most private sector jobs, salaries for most federal civil service jobs are set on the General Schedule, or GS pay scale, which maps required experience and level of job responsibility against a system of grades and steps within each grade. The GS pay scale is intended to be, and in most cases is, competitive with salaries in the private sector and takes into account cost of living differeces in different cities and regions.
General Schedule
The GS pay scale is used for most white-collar federal employees. It contains 15 grades, GS-1 being the lowest and GS-15 being the highest. Each grade has 10 steps and each step is a pay increase within that grade.
A college graduate with a Bachelor’s degree and without previous experience can expect to start in the GS 5 grade, unless they meet the criteria for Superior Academic Achievement or finished a year of graduate school, but did not receive a degree, in which case they will start at the GS-7 level. A college graduate with a Master’s typically starts in the GS-9 grade. More information about the amount of qualifying education for each pay grade and what constitutes Superior Academic Achievement can be found at: http://www.opm.gov/qualifications/SEC-II/s2-e5.asp.
The top four steps of a pay grade are higher paying than the bottom steps of the next highest grade. For example, step 10 in GS-7 pays $40,569/year, step 1 in GS-8 pays $34,563/year.
Typically, as a federal employee you can expect to move up one step per year as your seniority increases, although above-average job performance can accelerate their progress. You become eligible for a pay grade increase after one year. Every January, the pay scale is adjusted based on Presidential recommendations that receive Congressional approval to compensate for inflation.
Salaries also vary by geographic location in accordance with the cost of living in that area.
Select 2006 Starting Salaries
City |
GS-5 | GS-7 | GS-9 |
|---|---|---|---|
Atlanta |
$28,999 | $35,922 | $43,939 |
Chicago |
$30,524 | $37,810 | $46,249 |
Dallas |
$29,324 | $36,324 | $44,432 |
New York City |
$30,982 | $38,378 | $46,944 |
San Francisco |
$32,421 | $40,160 | $49,124 |
Washington, DC |
$29,604 | $36,671 | $44,856 |
Senior Executive Service
The highest pay grade in the federal government, which is above a GS-15 level, created for senior executive, supervisory and policy positions.
Banded Systems
Banded Systems create broader pay bands or “clusters” within which employees fall. They are less specific than the GS pay scale and are promotion-based. Each agency sets its own band expectations and salaries. Promotions are typically more merit-based than seniority-based. Banded systems include a pay-for-performance system: bonuses and salary augmentations based on accomplishments and pay increases are not necessarily accompanied by promotions.