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I'll be clerking in Nashville soon, and I'm a bit baffled by the locality rate table on the US Courts' website. I don't see any table for the Nashville region, which would presumably mean that its locality adjustment falls under Rest of US, but can that really be correct? Nashville is one of the ~25 most expensive cities in America to live in. What sense does it make that, for example, Davenport, IA and Huntsville, AL would have their own tables, each with a locality adjustment greater than Nashville's (assuming Nashville is in RUS)? Am I missing something?

Sounds totally plausible. Fed HR stuff often doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense.

It doesn't make sense, or if it makes sense, the system is beyond the comprehension of mortals. Consider locality pay for Raleigh NC, and Richmond VA, which get a bigger locality bump than Hawaii. I've lived in all three of these, and lol, just lol.

You're not missing anything: Nashville JSP rates are definitely RUS. Really, really dumb.

anon sequitur wrote:It doesn't make sense, or if it makes sense, the system is beyond the comprehension of mortals. Consider locality pay for Raleigh NC, and Richmond VA, which get a bigger locality bump than Hawaii. I've lived in all three of these, and lol, just lol.

I wonder if the rates reflect some combination of COL + desirability of location? As in, the COL in Davenport, IA is much lower than in Nashville, but you need to offer that much more $$$ in order to convince people to move to Davenport (nothing against Davenport). Might also explain why you don't get that much of a bump for living in Hawaii.

Perhaps state income tax (or lack thereof, in Nashville) is a factor.

Downtown is relatively expensive for the south, but drive ~10 miles in the "right" direction and you can find a two bedroom for $700/mo. I still think it should have its own locality rate though

Yeah, imagine that when they calculate cost of living, a big part of it is the availability of lower cost housing within a reasonable commute of the job site. A thirty minute commute from almost any southern or midwestern city gets you a pretty cheap place to live. Thirty minutes from Manhattan or SF is still expensive as heck. Would be very interested to know if state tax rates are explicitly factored in.