Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

3. Central Personnel Agencies · Notable · Needs Congress

Reinstate and extend the federal merit pay program

Not started

74 3. Central Personnel Agencies

“Ever since the original merit pay system for federal managers (GM-13 through GM-15 grade levels, just below the SES) was allowed to expire in September 1993, little to nothing has been done either to reinstate the federal merit pay program for managers or to distribute performance rating evaluations for the SES, much less to extend the program to the remainder of the workforce. A reform-friendly President and Congress might just provide the opportunity to create a more comprehensive performance plan”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    No bill, in either chamber. Searched all 18,433 bills of the 119th Congress in the Corpus for "merit pay", "Senior Executive", "civil service" and "federal workforce", and the 104 public laws enacted in the window; nothing would reinstate the merit pay system for GM-13 through GM-15 managers that lapsed in 1993, and nothing extends performance pay to the rest of the workforce. The 13 federal-workforce bills that exist run the other way or elsewhere — the Saving the Civil Service Act would block Schedule Policy/Career, and the rest concern attrition, separation incentives and union rights. The executive branch has tightened performance ratings without touching pay, which is not this ask.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27.

Requires Congress, and Congress has not moved.

A search of bill titles in Congress (18,433 bills, 119th Congress, from congress.gov, retrieved 2026-08-28):

  • “merit pay” — 0
  • “Senior Executive” — 0
  • “civil service” or “federal workforce” — 13, none on pay-for-performance: Saving the Civil Service Act (S.134, H.R.492 — an anti-Schedule F bill), Reducing the Federal Workforce Through Attrition Act, Federal Workforce Freedom Act, Federal Workforce Early Separation Incentives Act, and assorted resolutions.
  • Public laws (104): nothing.

The executive side has moved on rating rigor rather than pay: OPM’s SES rating cap (2025-09-16) and the 2026-07-07 appraisal rule extend forced distribution, but neither creates merit pay. The GM-13 to GM-15 merit pay system the Quote wants reinstated needs statute.

Action
reinstate
Object
federal merit pay program for managers
ID
114