The Senate is set to follow the House’s lead in backing a 2 percent federal employee raise to be paid by default in January, releasing its version of a spending bill that effectively endorses that figure by being silent regarding a raise.

While neither chamber has yet brought that bill, the general government appropriations measure, to a floor vote, approval by the key committee of both leaves only the slimmest of chances for boosting the raise beyond the 2 percent that President Biden recommended in his early year budget proposal.

Under federal pay law, the next action is likely be a White House message to Congress by the end of this month reiterating that proposed amount to be paid by default if no figure is enacted into law by year’s end. That letter designates the amount as the alternative to the much larger figure—now above 27 percent—that otherwise would be paid automatically under that law.

As with the House bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee made no comment on again backing a default raise, which has been the practice in all but a few recent years. Both however specify that the raise paid to GS employees should again act as the cap for employees paid under the separate locality based system for blue collar employees.

Most likely, a 2 percent raise would be divided into an across-the-board piece and a locality piece, resulting in raises that will vary among the nearly five dozen GS localities from somewhat above 2 percent to somewhat below. The exact amounts by locality would be determined by the Federal Salary Council, based on BLS data to be released in the fall.

A 2 percent raise would be a break in the common—though not legally required—practice of federal employee raises matching those of uniformed military personnel in the name of pay parity. A 4.5 percent raise is in process for most military personnel, as also recommended by Biden, with many lower-level enlisted personnel likely to receive further boosts.

Currently, there are 55 city-based localities, Alaska and Hawaii each are treated as localities in their entirety, and the catchall “rest of the U.S.” locality applies in other locations. No additional localities have been recommended for 2025.

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