The Congressional Research Service has said that in order to comply with the 1990 pay law—which was supposed to make federal raises virtually automatic, based on private sector wage increases and locality pay—federal employees would have to be granted average raises of 18.56 percent in 2003. That counts both an across-the-board component of 3.1 percent as indicated by the pertinent employment cost index measure plus locality pay that would have to range among localities up to 27.13 percent in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose locality.

The 1990 pay reform law has been virtually overlooked in the developing pay debate over the 2003 federal raise. The White House budget contained no discussion of that law as it proposed a 2.6 percent 2003 raise for federal employees and 4.1 percent for the military. In their comments on the raise issue, administration officials have focused on other aspects, such as the availability of within-grade increases to federal employees and the special hardships military personnel endure. However, employee organizations have not forgotten the 1990 law—the American Federation of Government Employees for example recently noted that under the law’s terms the federal-private pay gap was supposed to be virtually closed by now but that official figures show it remains about as large as in 1990. However, for now, they say the best chance for sweetening the federal raise appears to be an argument in favor of parity with the military, not an argument in favor of complying with a law that has little support in either party.

The CRS report notes that the 1990 federal pay law, called FEPCA, "has never been implemented as originally enacted. Since 1995, locality payments have been much lower than FEPCA requires. Additionally, while the methodology for setting federal pay adjustments has been questioned since the enactment of FEPCA, it remains a particular concern because the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys documenting non-federal rates of pay were not approved for use in determining the 2000, 2001 and 2002 locality payments and are not being recommended for use in determining 2003 locality pay." CRS notes that figures from as long ago as 1994 were "aged" to calculate 2003 locality raises indicated under the law. Critics of the pay law believe that such manipulation of numbers—which they consider incomplete in the first place—make the calculations under FEPCA unreliable and offer little reason for complying with the law.