Compare two locality pay areas

The areas below are the highest-paying localities in the General Schedule, plus Rest of U.S. — the rate that applies to every duty station outside a named area, and the one people most often weigh a move against. Each page compares every grade at step 5, works out the grade in the cheaper area that matches the more expensive one, and shows which of the two runs into the statutory ceiling first.

• San Jose Ca Vs New York Ny
• San Jose Ca Vs Los Angeles Ca
• San Jose Ca Vs Houston Tx
• San Jose Ca Vs Washington Dc
• San Jose Ca Vs San Diego Ca
• San Jose Ca Vs Rest Of U S
• New York Ny Vs Los Angeles Ca
• New York Ny Vs Houston Tx
• New York Ny Vs Washington Dc
• New York Ny Vs San Diego Ca
• New York Ny Vs Rest Of U S
• Los Angeles Ca Vs Houston Tx
• Los Angeles Ca Vs Washington Dc
• Los Angeles Ca Vs San Diego Ca
• Los Angeles Ca Vs Rest Of U S
• Houston Tx Vs Washington Dc
• Houston Tx Vs San Diego Ca
• Houston Tx Vs Rest Of U S
• Washington Dc Vs San Diego Ca
• Washington Dc Vs Rest Of U S
• San Diego Ca Vs Rest Of U S

Why the bigger salary is not always the better offer

Locality pay is set from what private employers in the same region pay for comparable work. It is not a cost-of-living adjustment, and OPM says so plainly. Regions where private salaries are high tend also to be expensive, so the two move together — but not by the same amount, and not reliably. The gap between them is large enough to reverse the ranking of the highest-paying areas outright.

That is what these pages measure. The salary comes from the published OPM table. The price level comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities, where 100 is the national average. These pages show the index to one decimal place and compute from the published three, so recomputing from the printed figure lands a few dollars away. Dividing one by the other gives a figure that is comparable across the country: what the salary would have to be, at average U.S. prices, to buy the same things.

Two cautions. The price index is published a year or more behind the pay tables, and metropolitan boundaries do not line up exactly with locality pay areas, so the nearest metropolitan area is used as the proxy. Where two areas land within one percent of each other, these pages say they are the same rather than pretending to a precision the data does not have.

What these pages deliberately leave out

State and local income tax is not modelled here, and for some of these pairs it is the single biggest remaining difference: Texas, Washington and Florida levy no state income tax, while California and New York do. Neither is housing tenure — the price index describes what things cost now, not what a mortgage signed a decade ago costs you. Nor is the value of being near the agency headquarters, which is a career fact rather than a pay fact.

What these pages do is remove the one distortion that is both large and invisible on a pay table, and leave the rest to you.

How to read a pair

Start at the top. The first figure is the difference in purchasing power at GS-12 step 5, and the sentence under it says which way it points. Where the answer contradicts the salaries — the lower-paying area leaving you better off — the page says so outright, because that is the case worth knowing about and the one no pay table will ever show you.

The exhibit below it repeats the comparison for all fifteen grades at step 5. The last column is the one to read: it is the difference in what the two salaries buy, not what they are. A positive number means the first area comes out ahead. Watch for the sign changing partway down the grades — it happens, and it means the better choice depends on the grade you are being offered.

Then three sections that answer the questions that follow. The step-by-step table lets a step 3 offer in one area be read against a step 7 offer in the other. The overtime section matters if overtime is a real part of the job, because the threshold at which it stops being paid at a premium is a local figure and differs between the two. And the equivalence section turns the comparison into a negotiating number: the grade you would have to reach in the cheaper area to match the more expensive one.

If your pair is not here

These pages cover the highest-paying localities, where most competitive offers are made, plus Rest of U.S. For any other combination, open either locality page: each one ranks its own area against all the others by purchasing power and names the neighbors immediately above and below it. The pay calculator will do the same for any grade, step and area, and will find your area from a ZIP code if you are not sure which one you are in.