Most civilian feds got a 2% federal pay raise for 2025, but certain senior-level feds working in some locality pay areas will see reduced pay raises.
President Joe Biden opted for a 2% average federal pay raise for civilian employees in 2025, but some employees in the higher grades and steps of the General Schedule will see an even smaller pay adjustment.
Although most federal employees will receive a pay bump somewhere around the 2% figure when they open their first paychecks of the new year, senior-level feds working in certain locality pay areas will continue to experience pay compression — a decades-old phenomenon in the federal pay system.