The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics released its figures yesterday for the twelve-month increase in the Employment Cost Index---a number based on nationwide wages and salaries and used to compute the average raise for civil service employees. While the rules for determining civil service pay seem relatively straight forward, the elimination of a disputed cost of living formula has caused the system to breakdown in recent years. Lobbying by interest groups, budgetary disputes between the legislative and executive branches, and the overall state of the economy---along with a recent initiative to give civil service workers a larger raise corresponding to that given to military personnel---will all play a role in how the ECI is used to determine federal salaries for 2003.
See "Pay System's Wheels Begin Grinding Toward 2003 Raise", STEPHEN BARR, The Washington Post, October 25, 2001