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

The board, which is composed of federal human resources experts appointed by the president and representatives of public unions, advises on government employee compensation issues. 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 wages.

“It’s a loss to our country when highly skilled professionals walk away from critical public service jobs because wages can’t keep up with for-profit corporations,” 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 over 2023, when the council reported a difference of 27.54%.. NTEU attributed the improvement average salary increase of 5.2%. that federal employees received in 2024, which was the largest increase in more than 40 years.

The feds are set to receive a Average growth of 2% next yearwhich government unions and some Democrats criticized as too low.

The council released the disparity data Monday in conjunction with a meeting during which the body recommended Biden administration officials establish new township pay zones in Kennewick-Richland-Walla Walla, Wash. and Syracuse-Auburn, NY. Both areas had a pay gap. outperforming the rest of the US by more than 10 percentage points, on average, over the three-year period between March 2022 and March 2024.

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

The board noted that the area around Dothan, Ala., technically qualifies to be set as a township payment area, but did not recommend it because of outliers that skewed the results.

The board also reiterated its suggestion from earlier this year that officials add Wyandot County, Ohio, to the Columbus, Ohio, payment area and Yuma County, Arizona, to the Phoenix, Arizona area. Due to future adjustments to township payment areas to better conform to the latest Office of Management and Budget map of metropolitan and combined statistical areas, the two counties would be virtually surrounded by locations already included in such areas. In these cases, it is standard for such counties to then be added to a locality payment area.