Raises for Federal Workers Won’t Be Uniform Across U.S.

Pay increases for federal workers in 2018 will range from a high of 2.29 percent for those in the Washington-Baltimore “locality pay area” to a low of 1.67 percent for employees not in a designated pay area.

Charts issued by the Office of Personnel Management show how the 1.9 percent average pay increase for calendar year 2018, which federal workers have long expected, translates to specific areas of the U.S. The variations occur because the increase consists of two parts: a 1.4 percent across-the-board pay raise for all federal workers in the General Schedule pay system and a 0.5 percent ...