Most civilian employees of the federal government will receive an average 4.6 percent pay raise in 2002.

In an executive order, President Bush directed that the raise be divided between a 3.6 percent base pay raise and an average 1 percent "locality-based" raise depending on where employees work. The raise was authorized in the 2002 Treasury-Postal spending bill.

Employees in the San Francisco, California area will realize the largest total pay increase at 5.42 percent. Other raises of more than 5 percent will go to employees in the major metropolitan areas of Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Detroit, Michigan; New York City, New York, and Chicago, Illinois.

Washington D.C. area employees will get a 4.77 percent raise, while employees in all other cities will get a 4.52 percent increase.

The White House turned down requests for extra locality-based raises in Austin, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada; Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina, and Louisville, Kentucky. The Office of Management and Budget and Department of Labor determined that data from the five cities did not adequately support the need for additional locality raises. As a result, the nearly 30,000 federal employees in those cities will get the standard increase of 4.52 percent.

The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 provided for locality-based pay increases as a method of bringing salaries of government employees closer to those of private sector workers. At the time the Act became law, private sector salaries averaged about 30 percent higher than those of government employees.

The raises reported on here will apply to employees paid under the General Schedule and Senior Executive Service pay tables as maintained by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

• All Pay Tables for Federal Employees - 2002

• Senior Executive Federal Employee Pay Tables

Note: Secretaries of the President's Cabinet agencies are paid under the Executive Schedule -- Level I and were set at $166,700 per year as of January 1, 2002.