Biden signs order finalizing 5.2% pay raise for feds in 2024

President Biden on Thursday issued an executive order implementing his plan to provide civilian federal workers with an average 5.2% pay raise next month.

As first proposed in his fiscal 2024 budget plan last March, the increase amounts to a 4.7% across-the-board boost to basic pay, alongside an average 0.5% increase in locality pay. As authorized in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which Biden is expected to sign this week, military service personnel also will see an average 5.2% pay raise next year.

An average 5.2% pay increase marks the largest authorized for federal workers since the Carter administration adopted a 9.1% average raise in 1980, as well as a 0.6% increase over last year’s raise, which itself marked a 20-year high.

On top of the historic pay increase, tens of thousands of federal employees will see a slightly larger increase than expected, thanks to a slew of recent changes in the locality pay system. Last year, the President’s Pay Agent, a body made up of Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, approved the creation of four new locality pay areas. And the body finally adopted plans to update the map of locality pay areas using new OMB data, adding dozens of counties to existing locality pay areas.

The Office of Personnel Management must now publish pay tables outlining the pay raise across all General Schedule pay grades and locality pay areas. Once updated, they will be available on the agency’s website.

The pay raise will go into effect for the first full pay period of 2024, which for most feds begins Jan. 14.