Methodology

Every number on PublicPay is computed directly from OPM's public record-level employment files. Nothing is estimated, modeled or filled in.

Source files

• Current: Federal Employment Raw Data, September 2026 (data captured through September 30, 2026; published November 4, 2026; version 1). 2,017,021 records.
• Prior year: Federal Employment Raw Data, September 2025 (version 4). 2,190,219 records.
• Both downloaded from data.opm.gov on November 5, 2026. Each record is one employee; the file has no names.

Pay definition

PublicPay uses OPM's annualized adjusted basic pay: an employee's rate of basic pay plus any basic pay supplement (locality pay or a special rate), after any pay cap, expressed as an annual amount. Hourly and other non-annual rates are annualized by OPM. It does not include overtime, bonuses, awards, allowances, retirement contributions, health benefits or other compensation, and it is a pay rate on the snapshot date, not earnings over a year.

Population for pay statistics

Pay statistics (median, percentiles, mean) use only full-time employees whose pay is published. Part-time, seasonal and intermittent employees are counted in headcounts but excluded from pay statistics so that figures compare like with like. Employees whose pay is "REDACTED" are excluded from pay statistics but included in headcounts.

Statistics shown

• Median: the middle value; half earn more, half less. PublicPay leads with the median because pay distributions are skewed.
• Middle 50%: 25th to 75th percentile. 10th–90th percentile shows the wider spread.
• Minimum group size: a statistic is shown only for groups with at least 30 full-time employees with published pay.
• Geography: state pages use the employee's official duty station. Employees whose location is withheld are excluded from every state.
• Agencies: OPM's agency field, which is the department for cabinet departments (for example, all VA components together) and the military department for defense.

Year-over-year changes

Changes compare the September 2026 snapshot with the September 2025 snapshot for the same group. A change in the median reflects pay adjustments and changes in who is in the group (hiring, departures, promotions, reorganizations), so it is not the same as the raise any individual received. Changes are shown only when both snapshots meet the minimum group size.

Which pages exist

A page is generated only when it has real data: occupations, states and agencies need at least 30 full-time employees with published pay. Large agencies whose pay is entirely withheld get a headcount page that says so. Comparison pages exist only for occupations with enough published pay in at least 5 states or 3 agencies.

Processing

The raw files are read in full, grouped, and summarized with standard percentile calculations (linear interpolation). Names of agencies and occupations are converted from OPM's upper-case codes for readability; abbreviations in OPM's agency names are expanded. Found an error? Report it.