The Federal Wage System mirrors the General Schedule in its structure but uses its own terminology, pay categories, and standards. A coding plan organizes every position by pay category, job family, occupation, and grade level. Once these components come into focus, classifying a blue collar federal position becomes a structured and repeatable process rather than a guessing game.
- The Federal Wage System uses three pay categories, wage grade for non supervisory work, wage leader for leaders, and wage supervisor for supervisors.
- Job families group occupations that share similar functions, materials, equipment, and transferable knowledge and skills.
- Key ranking jobs and job grading standards provide the framework and criteria that keep grade level decisions consistent across agencies.
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The sections below cover the pay categories, the job family and occupational coding, grade level determination, and the role of job grading standards and key ranking jobs. Together these components form the complete structure of the Federal Wage System.
The Three Pay Categories
The Federal Wage System uses three pay categories to describe different types of work. Wage grade, abbreviated WG, covers non supervisory positions. Wage leader, abbreviated WL, covers leader positions where an employee leads others but does not have full supervisory authority. Wage supervisor, abbreviated WS, covers supervisors who oversee leaders and non supervisory workers. Other prefixes may appear depending on the pay schedules used by a particular organization, but these three categories form the foundation.
Pay Tables and Hourly Rates
Each pay category has its own pay table, and the tables are location specific. A Denver pay schedule, for example, shows a wage grade table from grade one through fifteen, a wage leader table with the same grade structure, and a wage supervisor table that extends from grade one through nineteen. Each grade has five steps. The hourly rates differ by category and reflect the level of responsibility, so a wage supervisor at a given grade and step earns more than a wage leader or wage grade employee at the same grade and step. Pay tables change over time, and classifiers should always consult the OPM website for the most current rates.
Job Families and Occupations
Job families are broad groupings of related occupations. Positions are grouped into families based on the similarity of functions performed, the materials or equipment used, and the transferability of knowledge and skills. Occupations are subgroups within a job family that share subject matter, basic knowledge, and skill requirements. A motor vehicle operator is an occupation within the transportation and mobile equipment operations family. Codes for families have four digits with zeros as the third and fourth digits, and occupations within a family use the first two digits of the family code plus a unique two digit identifier.
A typical coding example looks like this:
- The transportation and mobile equipment operations family code is 5700.
- The motor vehicle operator occupation code within that family is 5703.
- A non supervisory motor vehicle operator at grade five is coded WG 5703 05.
- The pay category prefix, the four digit occupation code, and the two digit grade level combine to identify the position.
Grade Levels and Key Ranking Jobs
Grade levels are based on the skill, knowledge, and responsibility required to perform the work. Every grade represents a range of these factors sufficiently similar to justify a common range of pay rates on the local wage schedule. Apprentice jobs are handled separately, with each agency using its own titling and numbering system. Key ranking jobs are listed occupations with designated peg points, which identify the starting grade for each occupation within a job family. Peg points provide a framework that prevents inconsistent grade assignments, but they are not themselves Federal Wage System standards and cannot be used to make final grade level determinations.
Job Grading Standards and Evaluation Methods
Job grading standards are the Federal Wage System equivalent of classification standards on the General Schedule side. They are based on fact finding studies and are developed mainly along occupational lines, which means most grading standards apply to a specific occupation like painter, laborer, or toolmaker. The job grading evaluation method provides the procedures that keep the application of these standards consistent from one classification action to the next. Every classifier should be familiar with both the job grading standards and the evaluation methods for the occupations they work with.
