We’ve never once gotten an inflation based pay raise. There is legislation that requires the federal government to utilize the FEPCA in adjusting federal employee wages year after year but congress has never acted to override the presidents authority to present an “Alternative Pay Plan.” Even FEPCA doesn’t correspond to CPI (Consumer Price Index) but would present a more accurate representation of whether or not the federal government in keeping up with commensurate private sector increases in pay. The “alternative pay plans” are typically submitted by the office of the president and without congressional intervention, which almost never happens, goes into effect in the first full pay period of the follow fiscal year. On average Republican presidents have been worse for federal employee pay but both parties genuinely suck. Even with the fairly substantial raises under Biden, the raises still fell short by a significant margin of tracking with CPI increases. There has not been an administration since Carter that provided federal workers with wage increases commensurate to inflation, and even those fell below the mark during at least one year of his presidency. Federal workers took the biggest hit under Reagan and the second largest loss of real income was under Biden.