Anonymous wrote:OP you sound like a giant piece of work and a gold digger too. I hope he figures you out before it is too late.

I am not OP but you sound like you are 12 years old. Get over it. Or are you a fat hag who expects your husband to remain attracted to your sloppy behind?

Money matters. Looks matter. Deal with it.

Any woman who isn't concerned with finances is an idiot.

Just for fun you can check his salary here

http://fedsdatacenter.com/federal-pay-rates/

OP you sound like a giant piece of work and a gold digger too. I hope he figures you out before it is too late.

Anonymous wrote:Oh and when he reaches 15 years he will earn even more vacation - 10 hours per pay period which works out to over 6 weeks.

Eight hours per pay period, please get your facts straight

Good job OP. You should always do proper investigations before taking things further. It is better to have the info now, than to find out later and be disappointed. Love doesn't pay the bills, so you better have all the numbers together before your emotions cloud your judgment. Because once those emotions die down, you will still be left with numbers. It is better to make sure they are in your favor.

What your boyfriend's job has is a) relative stability and b) a pension. If he's a 15-10, he's never going to make substantially more money than he is now -- even if he goes SES. Most agencies decided to not do any kind of cash awards to make their required cuts through sequester. We haven't gotten COLAs, and he's also reached the cap.

However, you don't get 10 hours per pay period of leave when you hit GS-15, you get 8 hours per pay period when you hit 15 years in, regardless of grade level. You never get higher than 8 per pay period -- unless there's some agency out there paying bimonthly instead of bi-weekly and they readjust the hours accordingly (I don't think anyone pays bimonthly, though).

Anonymous wrote:It is weird that you are not talking to him about this and also I find it weird that you are so fixated on his income potential.

He makes a good salary. He will get a pension. He will get lots of leave to go on vacations or take care of the kids.

Since you are asking us this, you aren't comfortable asking him (or don't trust him) and either explanation means you probably are making a mistake if you marry him.

OP here. Thank you so much for your input. (I appreciate all responses, even ones that seem to question my motives.) But I just wanted to explain why I'm asking in this forum. My boyfriend says he's not a numbers guy, and jokes that that is why he went to law school. I am a numbers person (both at work and at home), and so I like to keep tabs on the numbers. I grew up in a family with a very modest income, and my sisters and I all learned to watch the numbers closely.

I have a possible opportunity at work to make a move that would be basically a lateral move for now, but that would be reporting to someone who's in his 60s and is planning to retire in the next 2-5 years. If my boyfriend's job is not likely to increase in salary, I may make this lateral move (which I would not normally make since I was originally hoping to advance in my current department.) So this is why I'm curious as to the potential for any pay increases for someone in his position.

I have asked my boyfriend some questions, but didn't want to pry too much about salary since it's a personal topic to most people. I did Google this topic but came up with conflicting information (and even in the responses here there is conflicting information about whether a cost-of-living increase would be available, although the consensus seems to be "no.) I figured this was a good use of this forum because I've noticed other GS employees posting on various topics. Thanks !

There are some non GS-scale federal jobs which have their own pay bands that can be higher.

For example, SEC, CFPB and Federal Reserve have salary bands that go above GS15 pay for non SES positions:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/careers/salary.htm
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/jobs/title

My husband is capped out, and he's only 34. It's a little weird to think this is it for him in terms of salary, but at the same time, the retirement benefits are good, his job is stable, and he can retire when he's 49 (if he wants to). The only thing that bugs me about it is that it seems unfair that we're in a high-cost area, and the max he can make living somewhere cheap like Tennessee is the same as the max here. So you kind of lose the benefit of locality pay once you top out.

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
(1)May I ask what is the prospect for a cost-of-living increase in future years? Forgive me if I am naive, but is it all dependent on politicians? Did it happen reliably for many years, but now it's not likely to return ever again?

(2)Also, this sequester does not seem to have effected his particular office, at least he hasn't been furloughed. But I don't know if there were bonuses in the past.

(3)I'm also not sure if he is excepted service or bargining unit? I think he's not in a bargaining unit because I feel like he would have mentioned that. MMany thanks.

1 - COLAs not likely to come back during this administration. Maybe if private sector jobs rebound for the lower-middle class, we'll get them back in 2017? But they used to be 2-3%. I don't know if we'll see those again.
2 - Sequester will continue. My agency has not done any furloughs yet but may next fiscal year. It's going to get worse before it gets better.
3 - I don't know this would effect his bonus potential. btw - federal "bonuses" are 1.5-3k a year - there's nominal tokens, not actual bonuses like what you're probably thinking of.

Anonymous wrote:Are you loving him because his salary and future salary increase potential or who he is?

$155K per year and GS15 in 12 years in government. He is very smart guy. I am not sure you are expecting. "Enjoy the view where you are rather than keep looking up". If you do keep looking up, you life will be miserable.

This. I was a GS 15 Step 10 (Top of the GS scale) for the last 16 years of my 26 yr. federal career. That's what it was, I was fine with that. I had no interest in the SES, especially for the money (my boss, btw, was an SES new to federal service made slightly less than me as a bottom rung SES'er, and the SES bonuses are not what they used to be nor does everyone get one).

If he's in federal service or you expect him to be there to keep making more money you will be quite disappointed. That's not what it's about. As noted, his leave will bump up, he can continue to build his TSP retirement account, etc., and in the long run you can be very very comfy on your $300k plus per year.

Given the political and other climate I would not plan on any significant increase in the GS salary scale in the next 10-15 yrs, they may even try something like the absurd "pay banding" or other experiments that have fallen flat.

He is topped out as a Fed, for the most part.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a max for GS -15 step 10s and once that max is hit, nothing raises pay--not even an across the board pay raise (cola). The bump for an SES is about 25K although there are different levels of SES and the levels get more or less pay. All of this information is in the public domain and can be found at OPM.GOV.

I don't think this is true - a cola increases the pay for gs-15 step 10. The whole scale shifts up.

Most definitely not true.

Here is hte GS pay scale from 2007, back when we still regularly got COLAs: http://archive.opm.gov/oca/07tables/html/dcb.asp

Max for a GS 15 Step 10 was $143 then.

Gee, thanks for your 6 year old info. I have only been out of government for two years and have a little more recent experience as a GS-15. For 2013, the max pay for a GS 15-8, 9 and 10 is 155,500. That is true across the country, regardless of locality pay adjustments. No regular GS-15 is getting more than 155,500. That is a legally set max limit. WIth Colas, over the years high level GS-15s are hitting the legal limit for a General Schedule employee. That limit is set by statute and historically has not been an issue for most feds because most never hit it. Since Congress can't get their act together to pass budgets, I kind of doubt that they have passed a law to ensure that the highest paid government employees get their cola--especially when cola's have been frozen.. So unless the COLA gets around the statute, I don't think that high level GS-15s get a pay raise. Just saying...

It is weird that you are not talking to him about this and also I find it weird that you are so fixated on his income potential.

He makes a good salary. He will get a pension. He will get lots of leave to go on vacations or take care of the kids.

Since you are asking us this, you aren't comfortable asking him (or don't trust him) and either explanation means you probably are making a mistake if you marry him.

Actually, there haven't been colas (cost of living adjustments for anyone on this forum who doesn't know) for years. With furloughs, most feds get a reduction in pay -- and more are coming in October when Congress doubles down on further cuts (that's the rumor, anyway). Brace yourselves.

OP here. Another side benefit I've noticed is that my boyfriend and his colleagues seem to have a good work-life balance. They get to participate in their kids' activities, which is wonderful. Several of his colleagues are really into physicall fitness, and competing if various races and triathlons. And he says that he guesses that the majority take advantage of the opportunity to work out at the gym during the work day (which is allowed by the employer). They seem like a healthy bunch, which is a side benefit of the reasonable work hours expected.