The findings indicate that pay increased as a result of mandated federal pay hikes. Further influencing pay raises was the need for government salaries to remain competitive with those given to scientists in industry and academia.
Federal workers received pay raises of 4.1 percent on Jan. 1, 1989, and then another 3.6 percent on Jan. 1, 1990. These pay hikes were also designed to compensate for periods when raises were less, such as January 1988, when salary increases were held to 2 percent.
More recently, salaries were boosted 4.1 percent on Jan. 1, 1991, and an additional 8 percent cost-of-living raise was given workers in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In January of this year, salaries rose 4.2 percent.
Many government scientists received pay increases that matched inflation and buffeted them against the recession, which produced frozen salaries--or layoffs--for many of their counterparts in academia and industry.
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