Originally Posted by channa
Government pay is all out of whack. Check out these locality pay tables:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/05tables/pdf/saltbl.pdf
The base GS salaries in Houston are more than they are in New York or Los Angeles. Why do I think W had something to do with that?

There are premium pay scales on top of that, based on your field and experience. They don't have locality pay though ... it's all base pay.
Scale I'm on pays about 10k a year better at each point.
Some agencies are ditching the GS scales to go to more of a pay for performance plan. Some agencies are already testing it out, and we're supposedly supposed to be going to it in the next year or so.