The 2025 General Schedule (GS) pay increase is a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for federal employees in the United States. The GS pay scale is used to determine the salaries of most white-collar federal employees, and the COLA is intended to keep pace with inflation and ensure that federal employees are fairly compensated.
The 2025 GS pay increase is expected to be around 5.1%, which is slightly higher than the 4.6% COLA that was implemented in 2024. This increase will affect approximately 2.1 million federal employees, and it is estimated to cost the government $26 billion.