re: Trump getting rid of automatic raises for federal workers

quote:

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. Once hired, you not only have better benefits than everyone, but you immediately get step increases. At NASA, they would hire basically everyone into a 5-7-9 or 9-11-12 step position.

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You're confusing pay grade with step.

Pay grade is the "5" or "7" or "9" in your first example, roughly corresponding to military rank or grade.

Within each grade (at least in GS, or general schedule positions) there are 10 steps - typically you start at Step 1 upon entry or promotion, unless other factors are used to place you at a higher step.

The step increases occur, generally, after 12, 24 or 36 months (1-2, 2-3, 3-4 are 12 months, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7 are 24 months, and to 8, 9 or 10 is 36 months). ETA: (early) Step increases can be awarded based on merit.

Now, it's understandable that you would conflate the 2 - for example, assuming at least satisfactory performance, if you're hired off the street into a 5-7-9 job, you would typically not get a step increase for 3 years - you would get a grade increase from 5 to 7 after year 1, and 7 to 9 after year 2, and would be GS-9/1 until your 3rd anniversary (and commonly that's when you would become a non-conditional) and you would get your first step increase to GS-9/2.

A grade increase is going to be better than a step virtually every time. Keep in mind, military folks get grade and step increases, too, although military steps are all 2 years.