In 2024, federal employees earned on average 24.72% less than their counterparts in similar jobs in the private sector, according to a new report from the Federal Wage Council which is based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The council, composed of federal human resources experts appointed by the president and public union representatives, advises on issues related to public employee compensation. Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Union of Treasury Employees and a board member, argued that the data shows that agencies need to offer higher salaries.

“It is a loss for our country when highly skilled professionals are turned away from critical public service jobs because salaries cannot keep up with those of for-profit companies,” Greenwald said in a statement. “We call on Congress and the White House to ensure that federal wages do not lose ground in 2025.”

This year’s pay gap is a slight improvement from 2023, when the council reported a difference of 27.54%. NTEU attributed this improvement to average salary increase of 5.2% that federal employees received in 2024, representing the largest increase in more than 40 years.

The federal government should receive a Average increase of 2% next yearwhich government unions and some Democrats have criticized as too low.

The board released the disparity data Monday during a meeting in which it recommended Biden administration officials establish new local pay zones in Kennewick-Richland-Walla Walla , Washington, and Syracuse-Auburn, New York. The two regions had a wage disparity. outperforming the rest of the United States by more than 10 percentage points on average over the three-year period between March 2022 and March 2024.

Creating these zones would affect approximately 4,368 general schedule employees, according to the report.

The board noted that the area around Dothan, Alabama, is technically qualified to be established as a locality fee area, but did not recommend doing so due to anomalous data that skewed the results.

Additionally, the board reiterated its suggestion from earlier this year that officials add Wyandot County, Ohio, to the Columbus, Ohio, locality payment area and Yuma, Arizona to the Phoenix, Arizona area. Due to upcoming adjustments to locality payment areas to better conform to the Office of Management and Budget’s latest Metropolitan and Combined Statistical Areas map, both counties would be virtually surrounded by locations already included in these areas. In these cases, it is common for these counties to then be added to a local payment area.