The Great Resignation is making it hard for United States Federal Government to keep low-level positions filled.
Back in the middle of January of this year, the President signed an order making GS1-GS3 all $15 an hour minimum. A GS 1 Step 1, the lowest grade on the GS payscale got a raise of $7,760 a year (Rest of the United States locality pay rate) when the President granted that $15 minimum.
He didn't do this to be generous, he did it to help the payroll processing center do its job. Because local minimum wage laws required $15 in many municipalities across the country the federal government was not in compliance. Instead of making the payroll center figure out the pay for thousands of individual employees based on where they live, the President just made a blanket decree.
He had to do this because Congress won't do its job and rework the entire GS payscale. For those of you who don't know, there is a locality pay based on your residency. So a GS 6 Step 7 worker in New York City gets paid a lot more than the same level worker in someplace rural and cheap to live. Your salary is your base pay plus locality pay. See the different pay scales at this link here: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/2022/general-schedule/
So now the lowest level of government workers all get paid the same amount and a GS 4 barely makes more than $15 an hour. Plus GS 15, the highest level of government workers are being shorted on their pay because the payscale exceeds Congress's current pay levels and they are not allowed to earn more than what Congress makes.
But the rest of the pay scale did not get a raise on par with that. The vast majority of admin workers in the federal government are GS 4-7 and none of them got a pay raise to match. They are just languishing.
Congress is refusing to give itself a pay raise for obvious political reasons, but by not doing so it is causing the pay system for government employees to break.
How do I know? Behold my Schadenfreude.
The Spokane VAMC is short 50 scheduling clerks and they cannot get people to apply for these positions. The pay is just not competitive enough in the state of Washington.
Currently, the starting pay for GS 5 Step 1 doctor appointment scheduler is $36,118. That comes out to $17.36 an hour.
The Spokane VAMC is grossly over budget because of Covid and its new medical records rollout and is overstaffed by 250 people. They have to make some painful cuts but also they need to staff up these empty clerk positions because the hospital cannot function without them. This is why I am amazed the medical center director signed a memorandum to increase the pay of all clerks for the Spokane VAMC by 40%.
Yes. A 40% pay raise. (Although I'm not sure what math equation they are using and if they are just going off the base salary and not including locality pay in their calculation because the raise I'm getting is not 40%. It's more like 25%. But I digress.)
I'm getting a $9000 raise. Effective 2/27 of this year. This means every clerk currently working for them is going to get one hell of a check for back pay. My pay is going to jump from $48,315 to over $57,000. This only affects employees of the Spokane VAMC and its clinics.
This is one Federal Government agency having job applicant recruiting problems for low ranking government workers. The actual essential workers that they need in order to function. Hell, they can't even find janitors. A position that historically was only open to disabled veterans but now they'll take anyone. Veteran or not. Disabled or not. Can you mop a floor? Yeah? You're hired.
The 4.6% pay raise the Biden Administration is proposing for 2023 isn't going to fix dick. It is laughable. It is less than the bare minimum that needs to be addressed to keep the government functioning to prevent our veterans from suffering. But Biden can only do so much. Congress needs to do its job. And believe it or not, this is why Congress needs a pay raise. Not because they deserve it, but because federal government workers do.
FYI, if you live in Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, or Wenatchee areas and are interested in getting a federal government job as a medical admin professional, they're hiring. The job fair is on May 7th, or go to USAJOBS. GOV to apply.
TLDR, I'm getting a $9000 pay raise because the Federal Government can't compete with Mcdonald's.