How do gs grades and steps work

In almost all cases, a person entering government service will start at step one of their grade. After one year of service, the person is eligible for a within-grade increase. If performance has been satisfactory and a supervisors approves, the individual moves from step one to step two, with the associated increase in pay.

The individual may increase in steps annually until step four, when the waiting period changes to every two years between steps four through seven. After step seven, the period of performance changes to every three years through step ten. If an employee's work is not satisfactory, a step increase may not be awarded.

On the other hand, exemplary employees may be eligible for a Quality Step Increase. This is an increase given in addition to their scheduled increases. Note: This is a base rate chart for those not covered in one of the 47 Locality Areas. If your town is not included in a specific locality areas this chart reflects your pay.

Starting pay depends on the level of experience, education and complexity of the position applied for. You may also be able to negotiate your starting salary if your previous employer pay was greater than step 1 of the pay grade you are hired into. Each GS grade has 10 pay steps.

General Schedule employees are referred to as white-collar workers under the federal classification system. There are 53 locality pay areas. Locality pay adjustments basically level the playing field for all federal employees across the country in different major metropolitan areas. The 53 designated locality area salaries are adjusted by comparing GS and non-Federal pay in each locality pay area, based on salary surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics BLS.

Locality Pay Tables Click on the locality area to view the pay table. There were thirteen cities added to the locality rate tables. The 13 cities included Albany, N. Louis, Mo. The 36 occupational families range from WG to WG There are few important notes and caveats about how Steps are assigned. First, if you receive a grade-increase, your "Time in Current Step" restarts. For example, if you are at GS, Step 5 and after 1 year you receive a promotion to GS, Step 5 you will have to wait another whole 2 years to get Step 6.

Second, starting step does not have to be Step 1. In some cases, a higher step can be given to a new employee. For example, if a new employee qualifies for GS-9, but the employee was making more than GS-9, Step 1 pay at their previous job, a higher starting step can be given to match the their previous pay. The table below shows the GS Step increase schedule.