UN COMPENSATION

United Nations Should 

Clarify the Process 

and Assumptions 

Underlying Secretariat 

Professional Salaries

Report to Congressional Requesters

May 2013

GAO-13-526

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-526, a report to 

congressional requesters

May 2013

UN COMPENSATION

United Nations Should Clarify the Process and 

Assumptions Underlying Secretariat Professional 

Salaries 

Why GAO Did This Study

Several UN member states have 

expressed concern that UN employee 

salaries are increasing, and that they

have limited understanding of how the 

UN determines salaries. ICSC 

determines salaries for Secretariat 

professional staff according to the 

Noblemaire Principle, which states that 

compensation should be high enough 

to attract civil servants internationally. 

In practice, the UN bases salaries for 

employees on salaries for U.S. civil 

service employees. The General 

Assembly has stipulated that salaries 

should be between 110 and 120 

percent of U.S. salaries. The UN and

the U.S. government also offer

employees benefits and allowances. 

GAO was asked to review UN 

compensation. The report examines

(1) how the UN sets salaries for 

Secretariat professional staff; (2) how 

the UN compares its employees’ 

salaries with U.S. civil service salaries,

including the assumptions underlying 

its process: and (3) how benefits and 

allowances provided to UN employees 

compare with those provided to U.S. 

civil service employees. GAO analyzed 

UN and U.S. government documents 

and interviewed U.S. and UN officials 

and other stakeholders.

What GAO Recommends 

GAO recommends that the U.S. 

Mission to the UN work with other 

member states to request that ICSC

clarify the assumptions of the margin

process and make this information 

available to member states. The 

Department of State concurred with 

this recommendation. ICSC did not 

agree with our conclusion and noted 

that its methodology is transparent. 

What GAO Found

The International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) determines changes to each 

component of United Nations (UN) Secretariat professional employees’ salaries

and calculates the difference between UN and U.S. civil service salaries 

annually. ICSC recommends adjustments to the first component, base salaries, 

each year to align with changes to U.S. civil service base salaries. For example, 

ICSC calculated that U.S. civil service base salaries, including the impact of tax 

changes, increased 1.37 percent on January 1, 2010 and recommended that the 

UN base salary scale increase 1.37 percent on January 1, 2011. To set post 

adjustments, an additional salary component intended to equalize purchasing 

power, ICSC calculates the cost of living in each duty station. ICSC monitors 

changes in inflation, exchange rates, and other factors, and updates post 

adjustments periodically to reflect those changes. ICSC conducts surveys of UN 

employees and collects data on prices at least once every 5 years to ensure that 

post adjustments reflect the cost of several categories of expenditures relative to 

New York City, such as goods and services, housing, and medical insurance. 

Additionally, ICSC calculates the margin, or percentage difference, between UN 

and U.S. civil service salaries each year. If this process shows that the margin 

has fallen below 110 or exceeded 120, ICSC can recommend changes to bring 

UN salaries within that range. 

GAO found that the reported margin between UN and U.S. civil service salaries

has increased over the past 10 years, and ICSC’s process for calculating this 

difference and its underlying assumptions lack clarity. ICSC data show that the 

margin was 116.9 in 2012, up from 109.3 in 2002. GAO found that ICSC has 

developed a six-step process for comparing salaries using various assumptions 

about the populations included in their calculation. While GAO found that ICSC 

makes reasonable assumptions when calculating the margin, GAO analysis 

showed that making different assumptions changes the results, from as low as

105.2 up to 126.7 for 2012. However, ICSC’s presentation of this margin

calculation to member states lacks clarity in that it does not adequately describe 

the process and its underlying assumptions. While ICSC has documented 

specific steps of the margin calculation, we found that ICSC has generally not 

documented the process as a whole.

The UN Secretariat provides benefits that are similar to U.S. civil service 

benefits, as well as allowances that are similar to those provided to U.S. civil 

service employees serving overseas. The UN offers its staff various benefits, 

including retirement and health and life insurance benefits, that are similar to 

those offered to U.S. civil service employees. The UN offers more generous 

leave benefits to its employees than the U.S. civil service. The UN also provides 

allowances such as grants for education and rental subsidies to its employees. 

Eligibility for these allowances depends on each employee’s unique 

circumstances, which makes it difficult to compare UN allowances to U.S. civil 

service allowances. However, U.S. civil service employees serving overseas are 

eligible for some similar allowances.

View GAO-13-526. For more information, 

contact Thomas Melito at (202) 512-9601 or 

melitot@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Letter 1 

Background 3

ICSC Determines Changes to Each Component of UN Salaries, 

Then Calculates the Difference between UN and U.S. Salaries 6

ICSC’s Reported Difference between UN and U.S. Civil Service 

Salaries Has Increased; ICSC’s Process and Related Assumptions 

for Calculating This Difference Lack Clarity 14

UN Benefits Are Generally Similar to Those Offered to U.S. Civil 

Service Employees, and UN Allowances Are Similar to 

Allowances for U.S. Civil Service Employees Serving Overseas 23

Conclusions 31

Recommendation for Executive Action 31

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 32

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 35

Appendix II UN Staff Assessment and the Tax Equalization Fund 37

Appendix III ICSC’s Margin Calculation Process

Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives 39

Steps in ICSC’s Net Salary Margin Calculation Process 39

Assumptions in ICSC’s Margin Calculation Process 45

Alternative Assumptions 47

Appendix IV UN and U.S. Civil Service Retirement Benefits 51

Appendix V UN Allowances and Allowances for U.S. Civil Service Staff 

Serving Overseas and Foreign Service Officers 54

Appendix VI Comments from the Department of State 58

GAO Comments 61

Contents 
Page ii GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Appendix VII Comments from the United Nations 62

GAO Comments 65

Appendix VIII GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 67

Tables

Table 1: International Civil Service Commission’s Reported Margin 

between UN and U.S. Salaries, 2002 to 2012 15

Table 2: Assumptions the International Civil Service Commission 

Makes in Calculating the Margin between UN and U.S. 

Civil Service Salaries 19

Table 3: 2012 Margin Results under Selected Alternative Scenarios 21

Table 4: Comparison of Leave Benefits for UN Secretariat and U.S. 

Civil Service Employees 27

Table 5: Assumptions the International Civil Service Commission 

Makes in the Margin Calculation Process 46

Figures

Figure 1: UN Secretariat Employees by Broad Occupational 

Groups, Including Professional Employees, 2012 4

Figure 2: UN Professional Salaries Include a Base Salary and Post 

Adjustment 7

Figure 3: International Civil Service Commission’s Net Salary 

Margin Calculation Process 16

Figure 4: UN Deducts the Staff Assessment from Gross Salaries 38

Figure 5: Steps in the International Civil Service Commission’s Net 

Salary Margin Calculation 40
Page iii GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Abbreviations

CEB United Nations Chief Executives Board for Coordination

CSRS Civil Service Retirement System

FERS Federal Employees Retirement System

GS General Schedule

ICSC International Civil Service Commission

OPM United States Office of Personnel Management

UN United Nations

TEF Tax Equalization Fund

TSP Thrift Savings Plan

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Page 1 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

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Washington, DC 20548

May 29, 2013

Congressional Requesters

Several member states of the United Nations (UN), including the United 

States, have expressed concern that UN employee salaries are 

increasing, and several member states are concerned that they have 

limited understanding of how the UN determines salaries. The UN system 

includes the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Secretariat, and 

separately administered funds, programs, and specialized agencies. To 

reduce competition for employees among these entities, among other 

reasons, the UN established a common system of salaries, allowances, 

and benefits. The common system includes the UN Secretariat, its 

affiliated programs, 13 specialized agencies, and one related entity.

The UN is guided by the Noblemaire Principle in setting salaries for 

professional staff at the Secretariat, as well as other UN common system 

organizations. This principle states that compensation should be set high 

enough to attract civil servants from all member states, including those 

member states with the highest paid government employees.1 In practice, 

since its inception in 1945, the UN has based salaries for its professional 

employees on salaries for the U.S. national civil service. 2

 

1

The Noblemaire Principle, originating in the League of Nations, was formulated by the 

Noblemaire Committee in its 1921 report.

The United 

States enacted a salary freeze for U.S. civil service employees in 2010; 

base salaries and locality pay remained at 2010 levels until December 31, 

2012. However, in 2011, Secretariat professional employees in New York 

received an increase in their cost-of-living adjustment which increased 

their salaries. In December 2012, the General Assembly decided to 

temporarily freeze the cost of living portion of UN salaries for employees 

2

Professional staff members are recruited internationally and typically perform work that is 

analytical, evaluative, conceptual, or creative, and requires at least a bachelor’s degree. 

The UN also employs general service staff members who are recruited locally, such as 

messengers, clerks, typists, secretaries, and administrative support staff. 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

posted in New York for 6 months, effective from August 1, 2012, to 

January 31, 2013.3

We were asked to review how compensation for UN employees is 

determined and to compare salaries and benefits for UN Secretariat 

employees and U.S. civil service employees. In this report, we examine 

(1) how the UN sets salaries for Secretariat professional staff; (2) how the 

UN compares its employees’ salaries with U.S. civil service salaries, 

including the assumptions underlying its process; and (3) how benefits 

and allowances provided to UN employees compare with benefits and 

allowances provided to U.S. civil servants.4

To determine how the UN sets salaries for Secretariat professional staff, 

we reviewed relevant documents from the UN’s International Civil Service 

Commission (ICSC) and interviewed ICSC officials and officials from the 

UN Secretariat’s budget office. To determine how the UN compares its 

employees’ salaries with U.S. civil service salaries, we analyzed ICSC’s 

annual reports and other documents showing the calculation of the 

difference between UN employee and U.S. civil service salaries, and 

replicated some parts of their process using UN and U.S. data. We 

reviewed relevant documentation and interviewed ICSC officials to 

assess the reliability of the data and determined that they were sufficiently 

reliable for the purposes of reviewing ICSC’s margin calculation process. 

We interviewed ICSC, UN, and member-state officials about ICSC’s 

calculation. To compare benefits and allowances provided to UN 

employees with benefits and allowances provided to U.S. civil servants, 

we analyzed documents from ICSC and other UN divisions, as well as 

documents from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and 

the Department of State (State). We also interviewed UN, OPM, and 

State officials about employee benefits and allowances. This report 

focuses on the compensation of UN Secretariat employees at the 

professional level, although professional employees of other common 

system organizations generally receive the same or similar salaries and 

 

3

When the 6-month freeze ended on February 1, 2013, UN Secretariat employees in New 

York received an increase in their cost-of-living adjustment, which resulted in an almost 2-

percent increase in their salaries.

4

We plan to provide more in-depth information about the value of UN and U.S. civil service 

employee benefits and allowances in a forthcoming report.
 

Page 3 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

benefits. Appendix I includes more details on our scope and 

methodology.

We conducted this performance audit from August 2012 to May 2013 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

As of June 30, 2012, the Secretariat employed 42,887 people, including 

12,289 professional-level employees.5

 

5

United Nations, Composition of the Secretariat: Staff Demographics, Report of the 

Secretary General, A/67/329 (Aug. 2012).

The UN Secretariat administers 

the programs and policies established by the other principal organs of the 

UN, including the General Assembly and the Security Council. The duties 

of the Secretariat include administering peacekeeping operations, 

mediating international disputes, surveying economic and social trends 

and problems, and preparing studies on human rights and sustainable 

development. The Secretariat is headquartered in New York City and has 

employees at other locations throughout the world. The Secretariat is 

primarily funded through assessed contributions from member states to 

the UN regular budget. More than half of its professional employees work

in departments or offices, such as the Department of Economics and 

Social Affairs and the Department for General Assembly and Conference 

Management, while the remainder work in field operations, including

peacekeeping missions and some special political missions, regional 

commissions, and tribunals (see fig. 1).

Background 

About 30 Percent of UN 

Secretariat Employees Are 

Professional Employees
 

Page 4 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Figure 1: UN Secretariat Employees by Broad Occupational Groups, Including Professional Employees, 2012

The UN sets salaries for professional staff according to the Noblemaire 

Principle, which states that compensation should be set high enough to 

attract nationals from all member states, including those member states 

with the highest-paid national civil service employees. Since its inception, 

the UN has based salaries for professional employees on salaries for the 

U.S. civil service. The General Assembly passed a resolution in 1985 

declaring that average UN net salaries should fall within 110 to 120 

percent of average U.S. civil service net salaries, with an average midpoint of 115 over a 5-year period.6

 

6

UN General Assembly Resolution A/40/244. For the remainder of this report, we will use 

the phrase, “the approved margin range,” to describe the 110 to 120 percent range and 

the 5-year average of 115.

According to UN officials and 

documentation, there are three main reasons for setting the margin range 

higher than U.S. civil service salaries: (1) the relative lack of job stability 

and security for UN professional staff members compared with U.S. civil 

servants, (2) the limited promotion potential for UN professional staff 

members compared with U.S. civil servants, and (3) the fact that a large 

subset of UN professional staff members are expatriates and therefore 

The Noblemaire Principle 

Guides the UN in Setting 

Salaries
 

Page 5 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

incur additional expenses in living away from their home country. The 

General Assembly has reaffirmed the approved margin range several 

times since 1985 and as recently as 2011, although representatives from 

some member states have suggested a lower range may be more 

appropriate.

The UN General Assembly established ICSC in 1974 as an independent 

expert body with a mandate to regulate and coordinate the conditions of 

service of staff in the UN common system. As a part of its mandate, ICSC 

determines compensation for employees within the UN common system. 

Each year, ICSC makes recommendations to the General Assembly to 

change base salaries to align them with any change in U.S. civil service 

salaries. The General Assembly must approve ICSC’s recommendations 

for the proposed changes to take effect. In addition, ICSC determines the 

cost-of-living component of UN salaries, called the post adjustment, 

without prior approval from the General Assembly. ICSC also has the 

authority to make decisions and take action independently on some 

routine compensation matters, such as establishing rates for some 

allowances and benefits. For example, ICSC may set the amount of 

hardship allowance for a duty station without General Assembly 

approval.7

ICSC is required to submit an annual report to the General Assembly that 

includes information on the implementation of its decisions and 

recommendations. In practice, the General Assembly refers ICSC’s report 

and any recommendations to the Fifth Committee, the UN’s 

administrative and budgetary committee. The Fifth Committee considers 

ICSC’s recommendations, including any financial implications of its 

proposals on the UN budget, and reports its draft resolutions and 

recommendations to the General Assembly. The General Assembly 

makes the final decision and issues resolutions on ICSC’s 

recommendations. Member states provide input and vote on ICSC’s 

recommendations through the Fifth Committee and the General 

Assembly.

 

7

The UN provides an annual hardship allowance to staff on assignment in duty stations 

where living and working conditions are difficult.

ICSC Determines Changes 

to UN Salaries and 

Benefits, Subject to 

General Assembly 

Approval 
 

Page 6 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

ICSC makes recommendations to change UN base salaries to align with 

changes to U.S. civil service salaries, determines the cost of living at 

each duty station to set post adjustments, and calculates the difference 

between UN and U.S. civil service salaries. To set the primary 

compensation component — base salaries— ICSC analyzes changes in 

U.S. civil service salaries annually and makes a recommendation to the 

General Assembly to align the UN base salary scale with U.S. civil 

service salaries. To set the second compensation component—post 

adjustment—ICSC monitors changes in the cost of living at each duty 

station monthly and modifies each post adjustment periodically to account 

for these changes. This process typically results in changes to UN net 

salaries, which include base salary and post adjustment, one or more 

times during the year. Once a year, ICSC calculates the margin, or 

percentage difference, between average UN net salaries and average 

U.S. civil service salaries, to determine if average UN net salaries fall 

within the approved range of 110 to 120 percent of average U.S. civil 

service salaries. If the result of this calculation shows that UN net salaries 

fall outside the approved range, ICSC may recommend or make changes 

to bring average UN net salaries within the approved range.

ICSC makes a recommendation to change the UN base salary scale each 

year based on its calculation of changes to salaries for U.S. civil service 

employees. According to ICSC documents, ICSC follows this process to 

ensure that UN employees receive at least the base salary of comparable 

U.S. civil service employees, regardless of duty station. The UN base 

salary scale also ensures that UN employees around the world at the 

same grade and step receive at least the same minimum compensation 

(see fig. 2). ICSC also uses the base salary to calculate post adjustments. 

The UN salary scale for professional employees includes five professional 

grades, two director grades, the assistant secretary-general level and the 

under-secretary-general level. The U.S. General Schedule, the pay 

system covering the majority of white-collar U.S. civil service employees, 

includes 15 grades; for comparison purposes, ICSC only considers 

ICSC Determines 

Changes to Each 

Component of UN 

Salaries, Then 

Calculates the 

Difference between 

UN and U.S. Salaries

ICSC Recommends 

Changes to UN Base 

Salaries to Align with U.S. 

Civil Service Base Salaries 

and Determines a Cost-ofLiving Adjustment for 

Each Post

ICSC Recommends Changes to 

UN Base Salaries to Align with 

U.S. Civil Service Base Salaries 
 

Page 7 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

grades 9 and higher to be professional grades. In addition, the U.S. civil 

service includes positions above grade 15, called the Senior Executive 

Service. Each of the UN professional and director grades is divided into 6 

to 15 steps and each of the U.S. General Schedule grades is divided into 

10 steps. UN and U.S. civil service employees who demonstrate an 

acceptable level of performance may receive step increases after a set 

length of time.

Figure 2: UN Professional Salaries Include a Base Salary and Post Adjustment

Notes:

a

Base salary ranges in effect as of January 1, 2012.

b

Base salary ranges shown are for staff members with one or more dependents. Staff members 

without dependents receive lower base salaries.

c

Post adjustment amounts vary by duty station.

To determine its recommended adjustment to the UN base salary scale, 

ICSC calculates the base salary of a U.S. civil service employee at a set 

point of the U.S. General Schedule and compares it with the base salary 

for professional employees at an equivalent point of the UN base salary 

scale. For the purposes of this comparison, ICSC uses the weighted 

average of the base salaries of U.S. civil servants at grade 13, step 6, 

and grade 14, step 6, of the U.S. General Schedule as a comparator 

salary considered to be equivalent to the base salary of a UN employee 

at the P-4, step 6, grade. ICSC then calculates the percentage increase 

needed to align the base salary of a UN employee at the P-4, step 6, 
 

Page 8 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

grade with the comparator salary derived from the U.S. General 

Schedule.

To assess the extent to which U.S. base salaries have changed each 

year, ICSC calculates (1) any changes in the comparator salary due to 

changes published in the U.S. General Schedule, and (2) any changes in 

tax rates that affect the take-home salary of U.S. civil servants earning 

the comparator salary who are married and file taxes jointly with their 

spouse and who have no income other than their U.S. civil service salary. 

After calculating the change in the comparator salary derived from the 

U.S. General Schedule, ICSC compares the resulting salary to the base 

salary of a UN employee at the P-4, step 6, grade who has one or more 

dependents.8 The UN pays employees with dependents at a higher rate 

than those without dependents. According to an ICSC report, this is 

similar to the practice of many member states that provide a tax 

advantage for having dependents. Many UN employees are not eligible 

for these tax advantages, as they might be if they were employed in their 

national civil service, because most UN employees are not required to 

pay income taxes on their UN earnings in their home country. However, 

since some member states may require UN employees to pay taxes on 

their UN earnings, the UN deducts an amount, called the staff 

assessment, to determine the base salaries that employees receive. The 

staff assessment funds are credited to an account, called the Tax 

Equalization Fund, and are used to reimburse employees who are 

required to pay income taxes in their home country (see app. II).9

After calculating the percentage increase needed to align the P-4, step 6, 

base salary with the U.S. comparator salary, ICSC makes a 

recommendation to the General Assembly to increase the UN base salary 

scale at all grades by the same percentage for the following year. As a 

result, changes to the UN base salary scale reflect the ICSC-calculated 

changes in U.S. base salaries for the prior year. In addition, ICSC 

recommends that the General Assembly decrease post adjustment levels 

for all duty stations at the same time and by the same amount as the 

 

8

The UN defines a dependent as a spouse with no income or income less than a set 

threshold, a child under the age of 18, a child between the ages of 18 and 21 who is a fulltime student, or a child with a permanent disability, regardless of age.

9

Currently, the United States is the only member state whose citizens employed by the 

UN are reimbursed by the TEF. 
 

Page 9 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

increase in the base salary scale. As a result, UN net salaries generally 

do not change when the updated base salary scale goes into effect in any 

given year, although increases in UN net salaries may occur one or more 

times during the year through increases in post adjustments. The General 

Assembly must approve ICSC’s recommendations for changes to the 

base salary scale to take effect. For example, in its 2010 annual report, 

ICSC recommended a 1.37 percent increase in the UN base salary scale 

at every grade for 2011 to align UN base salaries with changes in U.S. 

civil service base salaries, and ICSC also recommended an equivalent 

decrease in the post adjustment for each duty station. ICSC calculated 

that the base salary of U.S. civil service employees earning the 

comparator salary increased 1.37 percent on January 1, 2010, because 

of an increase in base salaries published in the General Schedule and 

changes in tax rates. The General Assembly approved the revised salary 

scale, and it became effective on January 1, 2011.

ICSC calculates cost of living, including price differences, inflation, 

exchange rates, and the average expenditure pattern of staff members, to 

set a post adjustment for each duty station. ICSC monitors changes in the 

cost of living at each duty station monthly and updates post adjustments 

periodically to account for these changes. As a result, UN employees may 

receive a net salary increase during the year if ICSC’s calculation shows 

that the cost of living in their duty station has increased. In addition, at 

least once every 5 years, ICSC conducts surveys of UN employees and 

collects price data to ensure that post adjustments reflect the typical 

expenditure pattern of UN employees at each location, as well as 

differences in prices between each duty station and New York City. ICSC 

has statutory authority to set post adjustments without General Assembly 

approval. According to ICSC documents and ICSC officials, the UN pays 

professional employees a post adjustment to ensure that UN employees

at each duty station receive a net salary with the same purchasing power 

as the net salary of UN employees in New York. UN employees in duty 

stations with a higher cost of living than that of New York receive a higher 

percentage of their base salary as their post adjustment. As of February 

1, 2013, staff members stationed in Romania received the lowest post 

adjustment, 26 percent of their base salary, and staff members stationed 

in Japan received the highest post adjustment, 119.7 percent of their 

base salary. Staff members stationed in New York received a post 

adjustment equal to 68.7 percent of their base salary.

ICSC monitors changes in exchange rates, inflation, and other factors at 

each duty station on a monthly basis to calculate the change in cost of

living. ICSC also periodically updates the post adjustment for each duty 

ICSC Calculates the Post 

Adjustment at Each Duty 

Station to Account for Cost of 

Living Changes 
 

Page 10 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

station to account for these changes. As a result, UN employees may 

receive a net salary increase one or more times throughout the year if 

ICSC decides to implement a higher post adjustment based on its 

calculation of the change in cost of living at their duty station. ICSC 

generally updates post adjustments to account for inflation in duty 

stations with more stable currencies, called Group I duty stations, less 

frequently than in duty stations, called Group II duty stations, where 

currencies may fluctuate rapidly and UN employees may need to spend a 

larger portion of their income outside the duty station to import goods not 

available on the local market.10

ICSC conducts surveys of staff members and collects price data on the 

cost of goods, services, housing, and other items in each duty station at 

least once every 5 years. ICSC uses these data to set a new baseline for 

each duty station’s post adjustment. ICSC then follows its procedures 

described above to monitor changes in the cost of living and update post 

adjustments as necessary until it conducts a new set of surveys. 

According to ICSC officials, this process ensures that post adjustments 

reflect the cost of living for UN employees, who are often living outside 

their home country and may have different spending patterns than 

permanent residents of an area. ICSC conducts surveys to estimate the 

average spending pattern of UN employees. ICSC then calculates the 

cost of each of five categories of expenditures relative to New York and 

weights each category based on the spending patterns of UN employees 

at that duty station:

In Group I duty stations, such as New 

York, ICSC typically updates post adjustments every 12 months to 

account for inflation and other cost increases, although it may change 

post adjustments earlier if it determines that the cost of living has 

changed at least 5 percent. For example, UN professional employees in 

New York received a salary increase in August 2011 when ICSC 

increased the post adjustment for New York from 61.3 percent of base 

salary to 65.7 percent of base salary based on its calculation of the 

increase in the cost of living in New York. In Group II duty stations, ICSC 

generally reviews post adjustments every 4 months.

• In-area expenditures. In-area expenditures include goods and 

services purchased on the local market at the duty station, such as 

 

10Group I duty stations include those in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia, 

as well as China (Hong Kong), Japan, and French Guiana. ICSC classifies all other duty 

stations as Group II duty stations.
 

Page 11 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

food and clothing. To set this component, ICSC staff or independent 

pricing agents collect the prices of over 300 goods and services that 

are commonly purchased by UN staff at locations popular among UN 

staff members. 

• Housing. ICSC calculates this component based on rental prices and 

the cost of other housing expenses, such as utilities and maintenance.

• Medical insurance contributions. ICSC compares data on the amount 

that staff members pay for medical insurance premiums at each duty 

station to calculate this component.

• Pension contributions. The amount of this component is the same for 

all duty stations, since all staff members at the same grade and step 

contribute the same amount to their pensions, regardless of their 

location.

• Out-of-area expenditures. This includes expenditures made outside of 

a staff member’s assigned duty station, such as to purchase items 

that are not available at the duty station, the cost of private travel 

outside the duty station, and education costs for dependents living 

abroad. This component is weighted more heavily in duty stations 

where staff members may need to import a larger number of items.

ICSC generally follows the same process to calculate the cost of living at 

all duty stations, although there are some differences between Group I 

and Group II duty stations. In Group I duty stations, ICSC relies less 

heavily on survey data and uses more data on prices from sources 

outside of their own surveys. For example, in Group I duty stations, ICSC 

uses data from licensed real estate agents to calculate the cost of rent

relative to New York, rather than survey data from staff members. In 

Group II duty stations, ICSC conducts surveys more frequently to account 

for significant changes in the cost of living due to rapid inflation or 

devaluation of local currency.
 

Page 12 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

The General Assembly requires ICSC to continually review the margin, or 

percentage difference, between UN and U.S. civil service salaries. ICSC 

annually calculates the percentage difference between average UN net 

salaries in New York and average U.S. civil service salaries in 

Washington, D.C., and submits the results of its calculation to the General 

Assembly in a report each August. ICSC calculates average UN net 

salaries in New York using the base salary scale in effect during that 

year, the post adjustment in effect, and an estimate of any post 

adjustment increases that are scheduled to take effect later in the year 

(for a detailed explanation of ICSC’s margin calculation process, see the 

following section). On the basis of the results of this calculation, ICSC 

may recommend changes to bring UN net salaries within the approved 

range of 110 to 120 percent of U.S. civil service salaries the following 

year.

If its annual margin calculation shows that average UN net salaries, 

including any post adjustment increases scheduled to take effect later in 

the year, are within the approved range, ICSC implements the post 

adjustment increases as scheduled. In addition, ICSC recommends an 

increase in the base salary scale for the following year to align with 

changes to U.S. civil service salaries, according to its usual process for 

adjusting the base salary scale. For example, ICSC calculated that, in 

2011, average UN net salaries were 114.2 percent of average U.S. civil 

service salaries, using the UN base salary scale in effect in 2011 and the 

estimated post adjustment for New York in 2011. Since the margin was 

within the approved 110 to 120 range, ICSC increased the post 

adjustment for New York from 61.3 percent of base salary to 65.7 percent 

of base salary in August 2011, as scheduled. ICSC recalculated the 

margin once the actual post adjustment increase went into effect and 

reported a final margin of 114.9 for 2011 in its annual report. ICSC 

recommended that the General Assembly increase the base salary scale 

0.13 percent on January 1, 2012, to align with changes to U.S. civil 

service salaries. In addition, ICSC recommended that the General 

Assembly decrease post adjustments for all duty stations by an 

equivalent amount to ensure that the base salary increase did not provide 

an additional increase in net salaries.

If the annual margin calculation shows that average UN net salaries have 

fallen below 110 percent of average U.S. civil service salaries, ICSC 

makes a recommendation to the General Assembly to increase UN base 

salaries. According to ICSC officials, the General Assembly has the 

authority to decide the amount of the increase. The General Assembly 

may choose to increase the base salary scale to bring the margin up to 

ICSC Calculates Difference 

between UN Net Salaries 

and U.S. Civil Service 

Salaries and May Adjust 

UN Salaries to Ensure 

They Fall within Approved 

Range
 

Page 13 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

110, to the midpoint of 115 that the General Assembly established as a 

desirable target, or to some other point within the range. For example, in 

2002, ICSC determined that the margin was 109.3 and, as a result, 

recommended an increase in the UN base salary scale, without 

decreasing the post adjustment, to bring the margin up to 115. The 

General Assembly approved a smaller increase in the base salary scale 

than ICSC had recommended which, combined with other changes that 

affected the margin calculation, increased the margin to 111.9 for 2003.

If ICSC’s calculation shows that average UN net salaries would exceed 

120 percent of average U.S. civil service salaries, ICSC officials said that 

they have the authority to act immediately to freeze UN salaries. If ICSC’s 

calculation shows that an estimated increase in the post adjustment in 

New York scheduled to go into effect later in the year would cause the 

margin to exceed 120 percent, ICSC officials said that they would not 

enact the full post adjustment increase. However, officials said that they 

might enact part of the increase. For example, according to an ICSC 

report, if granting a scheduled 5-percent increase in post adjustment 

would increase the margin to 123 percent, ICSC would not grant the full 

5-percent cost-of-living increase but might grant a 2-percent increase to 

keep the margin at or below 120 percent. ICSC officials said that if they 

were to freeze scheduled post adjustment increases for New York, they 

would also freeze post adjustments for all other duty stations. In practice, 

ICSC has not reported a margin above 120 percent since 1986, the first 

year after the General Assembly decided that UN salaries should remain 

within a margin of 110 to 120 percent of U.S. civil service salaries.
 

Page 14 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

According to ICSC, the margin between UN and U.S. civil service salaries 

increased from 109.3 percent in 2002 to 116.9 percent in 2012.11 We 

determined that ICSC has a complex process for calculating the margin. 

The process relies on several assumptions that we found to be 

reasonable, as they adhere to the General Assembly’s intent to compare 

the salaries of UN professional employees to those of U.S. civil service 

employees in comparable professional grades. Nevertheless, our analysis 

shows that using the same process but incorporating alternative 

reasonable assumptions would yield different results. ICSC has explained 

some of its assumptions in documents focused on discrete parts of the 

margin calculation process. However, we found that ICSC does not 

clearly state all of its assumptions when reporting the margin in its annual 

reports, and it has not comprehensively explained the process and its 

assumptions in any single source. This lack of clarity may limit member 

states’ ability to provide oversight of the margin calculation process, 

consider alternatives, and decide whether the ICSC’s recommendations 

are consistent with the goal of managing the UN budget as effectively as 

possible.

The results of ICSC’s annual calculations show that the margin, or 

percentage difference, between the average salaries of UN employees in 

New York and those of U.S. civil service employees in Washington, D.C., 

increased from 109.3 in 2002 to 116.9 in 2012 (see table 1). As noted 

above, ICSC calculates the margin each year to compare UN with U.S. 

salaries and to ensure that any changes to the post adjustment for New 

York do not result in a margin outside of the approved range of 110 to 

120 percent, while generally aiming for a 5-year average of 115 percent. 

ICSC presents the results of the margin calculation, along with any 

recommendations for salary adjustments, to the General Assembly in its 

annual reports. Since the last increase in U.S. civil service base salaries 

and locality pay in January 2010, ICSC’s reported margin has increased 

from 113.3 in 2010 to 116.9 in 2012, due to changes in the post 

adjustment for UN employees in New York. According to ICSC officials, 

they have not recommended that the General Assembly freeze UN 

salaries because the margin has not exceeded 120. Nevertheless, the 

 

11ICSC officials told us that they recalculate the margin before the General Assembly 

makes a decision on pay adjustments, and that, if necessary, they present a revised 

margin figure, which appears in the General Assembly resolutions. In such cases, we use 

the revised figure, rather than the original one in the annual report.

ICSC’s Reported 

Difference between 

UN and U.S. Civil 

Service Salaries Has 

Increased; ICSC’s 

Process and Related 

Assumptions for 

Calculating This 

Difference Lack 

Clarity

ICSC’s Calculated Margin 

between UN and U.S. Civil 

Service Salaries Increased 

between 2002 and 2012
 

Page 15 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

General Assembly decided in December 2012 to freeze the 

implementation of the updated New York post adjustment for 6 months.

Table 1: International Civil Service Commission’s Reported Margin between UN and 

U.S. Salaries, 2002 to 2012

Year Net salary margin 5-year average

2002 109.3 112.5

2003 110.9 111.7

2004 110.3 111.0

2005 111.1 110.5

2006 114.3 111.2

2007 114.0 112.3

2008 114.7 112.9

2009 113.8 113.6

2010 113.3 114.0

2011 114.9 114.1

2012 116.9 114.9

Source: GAO analysis of ICSC data.

Since 1976, ICSC has conducted an annual calculation of the margin 

between UN and U.S. salaries, using a complex process with six steps, 

shown in figure 3. The first two steps of the margin calculation are a 

Noblemaire study, to determine which country has the best-paid civil 

service, and a grade equivalency study, to match UN and U.S. pay 

scales. ICSC conducts each of these studies every 5 years, and the 

results serve as the foundation for ICSC’s annual margin calculation. The 

third, fourth, and fifth steps in the process are to calculate UN net salaries 

by grade in New York, average U.S. salaries by grade in Washington, 

D.C., and the margin by grade. In the sixth step, ICSC adjusts these 

margins by grade for cost of living, to determine the margin between UN 

and U.S. salaries. See appendix III for a detailed description of each step 

in ICSC’s margin calculation process, along with the assumptions 

associated with them.

ICSC Uses a Complex, SixStep Process for 

Calculating the Margin
 

Page 16 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Figure 3: International Civil Service Commission’s Net Salary Margin Calculation Process

Note: ICSC officials noted that some parts of steps 5 and 6 have been done in a different order, and 

not as completely separate steps. However, we found that the order of these steps does not change 

the calculated margin, and describing the steps separately increases the clarity of the process. 

ICSC’s process for calculating the margin is complex, in part because it is 

difficult to make a direct comparison between UN and U.S. salaries. To 

address this challenge, ICSC compares a subset of UN and U.S. 
 

Page 17 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

employees that have similar characteristics rather than make a direct 

comparison of all employees. For example, in the grade equivalency 

study (step 2 of the process), ICSC limits the comparison to UN staff who 

are in occupations with a large number of professional staff. More 

specifically, we determined from ICSC officials and documents that ICSC 

does the following in performing its grade equivalency study:

a. Collects individual data on UN staff from all UN common system 

organizations. 

b. ICSC analyzes the UN staff data to determine the occupations in the UN 

common system that have the largest numbers of professional staff. 

ICSC officials said that they usually include occupations until at least 80 

percent of all UN professional staff are represented in their calculation.

c. ICSC matches UN occupations to U.S. occupations. To do so, ICSC 

purchases data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on U.S. 

civil service positions in the Washington, D.C., area and analyzes these 

data to request U.S. agency job descriptions with similar job titles.

12 The 

UN then analyzes job descriptions for these matches, using OPM’s 

Handbook of Occupational Groups and Families, and applies UN criteria 

to determine how they would be graded under the UN system. Finally, 

ICSC creates a grade equivalency matrix with the results, which show 

how frequently a specific occupation type in a U.S. grade is classified in 

particular UN grades.

ICSC’s process for calculating the margin between UN and U.S. civil 

service salaries relies on several assumptions that define the subset of 

employees it is comparing. We found these assumptions to be 

reasonable because they are consistent with the General Assembly’s 

broad goal of comparing the salaries of UN professional staff to those of 

comparable U.S. civil service employees. Consistent with Generally 

Accepted Government Auditing Standards, a process has reasonable 

assumptions if the evidence it produces is sufficient and appropriate to 

decision making.13

 

12ICSC officials said that they are not always able to obtain data from other agencies that 

use pay plans other than the GS.

In order to determine the reasonableness of ICSC’s 

13GAO, Government Auditing Standards, 2011 Revision, GAO-12-331G (Washington, 

D.C.: December 2011) and Designing Evaluations, 2012 Revision, GAO-12-208G 

(Washington, D.C.: January 2012).

ICSC’s Process for 

Calculating the Margin 

Relies on a Reasonable Set 

of Assumptions
 

Page 18 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

assumptions, we considered whether the reported margin was consistent 

with the General Assembly’s goal of comparing the salaries of UN 

professional staff with those of U.S. civil service employees for the 

purpose of determining whether UN salary levels are consistent with the 

Noblemaire Principle. 

In defining the subset of UN and U.S. civil service employees whose 

salaries are being compared, ICSC’s margin calculation process makes 

eight assumptions, as shown in table 2. We clarified the reason that ICSC 

made each assumption with ICSC officials and found that the 

assumptions were consistent with the General Assembly’s goal for this 

analysis. For example, ICSC assumes that UN employees on the 

dependency rate are the most appropriate comparison group because UN 

staff members with dependents account for the majority of UN 

employees. ICSC officials said that they exclude employees without 

dependents because most new hires fall into this category, so including 

these employees in the margin calculation might reflect changes in hiring 

patterns rather than changes in actual salary levels. According to ICSC 

officials, excluding employees without dependents leads to a more stable 

and consistent margin value over time and prevents the need for 

corrections in the margin calculation.
 

Page 19 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Table 2: Assumptions the International Civil Service Commission Makes in Calculating the Margin between UN and U.S. Civil 

Service Salaries

Steps Assumption Impact on margin calculation process

1 Per capita income is representative of 

civil service salaries in a country.

Potentially leads to exclusion of countries with civil service salaries that are 

outliers relative to their country’s average, but provides a simple way to narrow 

the list of comparators

1, 2, 3, 4, 

5, 6

Employees in headquarters locations 

are representative of all employees.

Potentially excludes employees in locations that are outliers relative to 

headquarters, but reduces time and staff needed for step 6 while focusing on 

areas with the most employees.

2, 3, 4, 5 Employees receiving the dependency 

rate are representative of UN salary of 

all professional staff.

Excludes employees without dependents, who are paid lower salaries and who 

are more likely to be distributed at the lower UN grades, but prevents shocks in 

the annual margin calculation due to the greater stability of dependency rate 

employees.

2, 3, 4, 5 Occupations with the most staff are 

representative of all UN occupations.

Excludes employees in occupations with fewer staff who may be paid differently 

than those in more common occupations, but increases the likelihood that there 

are sufficient data to draw a comparison between UN and U.S. civil service 

employees.

3, 4, 5 The proportion of staff in each 

occupation is relatively stable for a 5-

year period.

Includes occupations in the annual margin calculation that may have shrunk 

and excludes those that may have grown since the most recent grade 

equivalency study, but reduces the cost of conducting more frequent grade 

equivalency studies.

4, 5 All U.S. civil service employees are 

married and file jointly.

Decreases the accuracy of U.S. average net salary calculations, but enables 

ICSC to make a comparison despite limited data and uses the U.S. filing status 

that is most comparable to the UN dependency rate.

4, 5 U.S. civil service employees use the 

average deductions in their state.

Decreases the accuracy of U.S. average net salary calculations, but enables 

ICSC to make a comparison despite limited data on U.S. civil service 

employees’ state income taxes.

6 Differences in salary between two 

locations are associated with the cost 

of living in those locations.

Margin comparison considers the purchasing power of employees rather than 

the cost of labor for those employees as in U.S. locality pay differentials, but the 

former is consistent with the UN’s post adjustment.

Legend: Step 1 = Determine which country has the best paid civil service; Step 2 = Match UN and 

U.S. pay scales, by occupation; Step 3 = Calculate UN average salary by grade; Step 4 = Calculate 

U.S. average salary by grade; Step 5 = Calculate the margin for each grade; Step 6 = Adjust for cost 

of living.

Source: GAO analysis of ICSC source documents and interviews.

In addition, ICSC limits its comparison to UN employees in New York City 

and U.S. civil service employees in Washington, D.C. ICSC 

acknowledges that some of the difference in salaries between the two 

groups is due to the difference in their locations, and uses a cost-of-living 

adjustment to correct for this difference. This adjustment assumes that 

the differences in salary reflect differences in purchasing power in New 

York City versus Washington, D.C. The margin calculation adjusts for the 

differences in costs for some expenses common to both locations, 

including housing, transportation, and food. ICSC hires an independent 

organization to estimate the total cost-of-living difference between the two 

locations. This adjustment is commonly used in economics to control for 
 

Page 20 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

such cost differences, and it allows for a more accurate comparison of UN 

and U.S. employees’ salaries than if no adjustment had been made.

While we found that the ICSC makes reasonable assumptions when 

calculating the margin, we found that making different assumptions, which 

are also reasonable, changes the results. Our analysis of some potential 

alternatives produced a range of different margins that vary from 105.2 to 

126.7. Specifically, we recalculated the 2012 margin by changing one or 

more of ICSC’s assumptions, resulting in five alternative scenarios (see 

table 3).14 The first assumption we modified was ICSC’s assumption that 

employees receiving the dependency rate are representative of the 

average net UN salary of all professional staff. To examine the impact of 

this assumption on the final margin result, we calculated the margin in a 

scenario where only employees without dependents are included, and 

another scenario where employees receiving both the dependency and 

the single rates are included. Changing these assumptions resulted in 

changes in two inputs to ICSC’s calculation: average UN salary15 and the 

distribution of staff among UN professional grades. Including only 

employees without dependents, who receive a lower salary, resulted in a 

lower margin of 105.2, while including both those employees and 

employees with dependents resulted in a margin of 108.0.

16

 

14We did not comprehensively analyze all of the alternative assumptions that could be 

made in ICSC’s process, but rather analyzed an illustrative few for which we were able to 

obtain relevant data. Because the most appropriate alternative is dependent on the need 

for information to make decisions, and because member states and the General Assembly 

are ultimately the users of this information, we are not endorsing any of these alternatives 

as the most appropriate.

15Because we did not have data on actual UN salaries, we used the base salary with the 

New York post adjustment at step 4 of each grade in these calculations. The results would 

likely be different if actual salary data were used.

16One limitation of these two results, however, is that we did not have ICSC data on U.S. 

tax liabilities, and thus the comparison group was still U.S. civil service employees who 

were assumed to be married and filing jointly. Ideally, we would consider only those U.S. 

employees whose filing status is single for the first comparison, and all U.S. employees in 

the second comparison.

Alternative Margin 

Calculation Assumptions 

Would Also Achieve the 

General Assembly’s Goal 

but Change the Results
 

Page 21 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Table 3: 2012 Margin Results under Selected Alternative Scenarios 

Scenarioa New margin 

resultb

ICSC reported margin for 2012 117.7

1. Assume that employees without dependents are 

representative of all UN staff (only include them in the 

calculation)c

105.2

2. Do not assume a specific salary rate distribution for UN 

employees (include both dependency-rate and single-rate UN 

employees)

108.0

3. Assume that cost of labor explains the difference in salary in 

the two locations (use cost of labor instead of cost of living)

126.7

4. Assumptions 1 and 3 above: only include UN employees 

without dependents and use cost of labor 

113.3

5. Assumptions 2 and 3 above: include both dependent-rate and 

single-rate UN employees, and use cost of labor

116.3c

Source: GAO analysis of ICSC data.

Notes:

 aBecause relevant data were not available, we did not analyze scenarios in which a different subset 

of occupations, or all occupations, were included, nor did we analyze scenarios with alternative 

assumptions about the tax liabilities of U.S. civil service employees. Such scenarios would likely have 

different results from those included.

b

In scenarios 1, 2, 4, and 5, the comparison group is U.S. civil service employees who are married 

and filing jointly. These results would be different if only single U.S. employees, or both single and 

U.S. employees with dependents, were included, as they would be in an ideal comparison. However, 

we did not analyze these scenarios because we did not have ICSC data on U.S. tax liabilities.

c

Because relevant data on UN salaries were not available, we used step 4 of the base salary with the 

New York post adjustment in scenarios 1,2,4 and 5.

The next assumption we modified was the assumption that differences in 

salary between two locations are associated with the cost of living in 

those locations. To examine the impact of this assumption on the final 

margin result, we calculated the margin using the cost of labor, as used 

by the federal government in setting U.S. civil service locality pay. The 

UN uses the cost of living in the margin calculation process to estimate 

the purchasing power of UN employees’ salaries. The cost of labor that 

we used in our alternative scenario represents an estimate of the market 

wage for a U.S. government position.17

 

17In calculating its own locality pay among different regions, OPM uses the cost of labor.

Using a cost-of-labor measure, we 

calculated a higher margin of 126.7.
 

Page 22 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

We also modified both of these previous assumptions, resulting in two 

additional scenarios. The first includes only employees without 

dependents and uses the cost of labor to adjust for differences between 

New York and Washington, D.C. The second scenario includes both 

employees with dependents and those without dependents, and also 

uses the cost of labor. Overall, the change from using the cost of living to 

using the cost of labor led to the highest calculated margin result, and 

including only employees without dependents led to the lowest calculated 

margin result.

ICSC has not adequately described its margin calculation process, or its 

underlying assumptions, in its annual reports to the General Assembly or 

other documents. The Standards for Internal Controls in the Federal 

Government states that information should be recorded and 

communicated to management and others within the entity who need it 

and in a form and within a time frame that enables them to carry out their 

internal control and other responsibilities.18

 

18GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (supersedes AIMD-98-

21.3.1), AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999). We are suggesting this as 

a best practice.

We reviewed ICSC annual 

reports, as well as various internal reports and summary documents that 

ICSC provided us, and found that none of these documents 

comprehensively described the ICSC margin calculation process and its 

underlying assumptions. For example, when adjusting U.S. average 

salaries for tax liabilities, ICSC assumes that all U.S. civil service 

employees are married and filing their taxes jointly with their spouse, 

even though some of these employees may file as single or as married 

but filing separately from their spouse. However, ICSC does not note in 

its annual report that this assumption does not precisely reflect the 

population of U.S. civil service employees included in the calculation, and 

therefore member states are not given adequate information to 

understand how ICSC has defined this population. ICSC officials told us 

that the data available to ICSC do not indicate actual filing status or tax 

liability for U.S. civil service employees and that the assumed filing status 

of married filing jointly and with dependents is the most comparable to 

employees receiving the dependency rate in the UN, thus allowing for a 

better comparison of the two populations. As noted above, the 

assumptions underlying the margin calculation process directly affect how 

ICSC’s Presentation of the 

Margin Calculation 

Process and Underlying 

Assumptions Are Unclear
 

Page 23 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

the populations are being compared, and different assumptions yield 

different results.

Additionally, ICSC has not provided a comprehensive explanation to 

member states about its process. Representatives from four UN member 

states, including representatives from the U.S. Mission to the UN in New 

York, said that they did not understand the entire margin calculation 

process and that ICSC’s attempts to explain the process had not 

improved their understanding of it. Although officials from ICSC provided 

us with a range of historical and summary documents about parts of their 

process, no single document comprehensively described the entire 

margin calculation process, including its underlying assumptions. While 

ICSC has documented aspects of specific steps of the margin calculation, 

we found that ICSC has generally not documented the process as a 

whole.

The UN Secretariat provides numerous benefits that are similar to U.S. 

civil service benefits, and UN employees receive a number of allowances 

that are similar to those available to U.S. civil service employees serving 

overseas. The UN offers its staff various benefits, including retirement, 

health insurance, and life insurance benefits, that are similar to benefits 

offered to U.S. civil service employees. The UN also provides allowances, 

such as education grants and rental subsidies, to its employees. Eligibility 

for these allowances depends on each employee’s unique circumstances, 

which makes it difficult to compare UN allowances to U.S. civil service 

allowances. However, UN employees are eligible for a similar array of 

allowances as U.S. civil service staff serving outside of the United States.

UN Benefits Are 

Generally Similar to 

Those Offered to U.S. 

Civil Service 

Employees, and UN 

Allowances Are 

Similar to Allowances 

for U.S. Civil Service 

Employees Serving 

Overseas 
 

Page 24 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Retirement benefits for both UN and U.S. employees are administered 

through separate agencies. UN retirement benefits are administered by 

the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, which was established in 1949 to 

provide retirement, survivor, and disability benefits for UN staff. U.S. civil 

service retirement benefits are administered by OPM, under two systems:

the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), and the Federal Employees 

Retirement System (FERS), which generally covers employees first hired 

in 1984 or later. According to a UN official, the UN retirement benefits 

package is structured to be comparable to CSRS.

The UN and U.S. retirement systems share some similarities in terms of 

retirement age, contribution amounts, and the amount of the retirement

benefit. The age at which UN employees generally qualify for retirement 

benefits is 60 for employees who began working at the UN before 

January 1, 1990, and 62 for employees who began after January 1, 1990.

For U.S. civil servants under CSRS and FERS, employees can retire at 

60 with at least 20 years of service or 62 with at least 5 years of service, 

though a person with 30 years or more of service may retire earlier. UN 

employees contribute 7.9 percent of their salary to their retirement plan, 

and CSRS employees contribute 7, 7.5, or 8 percent, depending on their 

position.19

 

19Regular federal employees contribute 7 percent of their basic pay to their pensions 

under CSRS. Law enforcement officers, firefighters, and congressional employees pay 

7.5 percent. Members of Congress, bankruptcy judges, judges of the U.S. Court of 

Military Appeals, and employees of the United States Magistrate contribute 8 percent.

FERS employees contribute a much lower amount of their 

salary to their retirement plan, 0.8 percent, and receive a smaller annual 

retirement, but also have the option of contributing to a defined 

contribution plan with a federal matching component, called the Thrift 

Savings Plan (TSP). As of January 1, 2013, newly hired employees 

covered by FERS contribute 3.1 percent and the employer contributes 9.6 

UN Retirement and 

Insurance Benefits Are 

Similar to U.S. Civil 

Service Benefits, but UN 

Secretariat Employees 

Accrue More Leave than 

U.S. Employees

Retirement benefits
 

Page 25 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

percent. FERS employees also pay an additional 6.2 percent of their 

salary (up to $113,700) in Social Security taxes. In 2013, federal 

employees could contribute a maximum of $17,500 to their TSP.

Appendix IV contains detailed information about UN and U.S. civil service 

retirement plans.

The value of the retirement benefit for UN and U.S. civil service 

employees differs from employee to employee, depending on their years 

of service, their highest salary, and, for U.S. civil service staff under the 

FERS plan, the amount that they contributed to their TSP. For example, 

for a UN employee who retired at age 65 with 20 years of service and a 

final average remuneration of $100,000, the annual retirement benefit

would be $36,250.20

In 2011, ICSC published a study comparing UN and U.S. retirement 

plans, and concluded that UN and U.S. FERS employee income 

replacement rates, the percentage of pre-retirement income replaced by 

retirement income, are comparable if employee contributions are 

similar.

An equivalent U.S. civil service employee who retired 

at age 65 with 20 years of service and an average final salary of 

$100,000 would also have an annual retirement benefit of $36,250 under 

the CSRS system. An equivalent U.S. civil service employee under the 

FERS system would have an annual retirement benefit of $22,000 plus 

any additional income earned from his or her TSP, depending on his or 

her contributions and investment choices.

21

 

20The UN defines final average remuneration as the annual average pensionable 

remuneration within the 36 completed calendar months of highest pensionable 

remuneration within the last 5 years of service. OPM defines the average high-three 

salary for CSRS and FERS employees as the largest annual rate resulting from averaging 

an employee's basic pay in effect over any period of 3 consecutive years of service, with 

each rate weighted by the length of time it was in effect.

The study found that the income replacement rate for UN 

retirees was 55.6 percent, meaning that UN employees can expect to 

replace 55.6 percent of their salaries after they retire. According to the 

study, U.S. employees can expect to replace 54.7 percent of their salaries 

after retirement if they contribute 0.9 percent of their salaries to TSP, or 

78.4 percent if they contribute 9.4 percent of their salaries to TSP.

21United Nations, Comparison of the United States/United Nations Income Replacement 

Ratios, ICSC/72/R.4 (2011).
 

Page 26 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Both UN and U.S. civil service employees are eligible for health insurance 

and life insurance. UN Secretariat employees working in headquarters 

have a choice of several preferred provider organization plans, and the 

amount they pay for their insurance depends on whether their insurance 

also covers their spouse and children. UN Secretariat employees working 

outside of the United States are covered by a self-funded health benefit 

plan that reimburses employees for medical expenses around the world.

For UN Secretariat employees working at the UN headquarters in New 

York City, the UN covers 33 percent of the cost of the health insurance 

premium, and for employees working outside of the United States, the UN 

covers 50 percent. The monthly cost of UN employee health insurance 

premiums in 2012 ranged from $610 to $2,286, depending on the plan 

chosen and whether dependents were insured. The amount that UN 

employees contributed ranged from 3.4 percent of their salary to 9.7 

percent of their salary, depending on the plan and whether dependents 

are insured. U.S. civil service employees are eligible for a much wider 

array of health insurance plans, which vary from state to state, and also 

range in cost depending on whether the insurance covered the 

employee’s spouse and children. Employee premiums for nationwide 

plans in 2012 ranged from $93 to $638 per month, depending on the 

plans and whether it covered dependents. U.S. civil service employees 

working outside of the United States are also generally eligible for health 

insurance.

The UN Secretariat offers its employees the option of enrolling in a group 

life insurance plan, but covers none of the cost of the insurance. U.S. civil 

service employees are automatically enrolled in a group life insurance 

plan, unless they waive the coverage. The U.S. government covers onethird of the cost of this insurance and two-thirds is covered by the 

employee.

While both organizations offer leave benefits, UN Secretariat employees 

are eligible for more generous leave benefits than U.S. civil service 

employees. For example, UN employees earn more annual leave than 

U.S. civil service employees. UN employees on fixed terms contracts 

earn 30 days of annual leave a year, while U.S. civil service employees 

earn 26 days a year once they have 15 or more years of service. U.S. 

civil service employees with fewer than 3 years of service earn 13 days of 

annual leave a year, and those with 3 but less than 15 years of service 

earn 20 days per year. In addition, UN employees can be eligible for more 

sick leave than U.S. civil service employees, depending on length of 

service. UN employees do not earn sick leave the way they earn annual 

leave. Those with a need for sick leave who have worked for the UN for 

Health Benefits and Life 

Insurance

Leave Benefits 
 

Page 27 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

fewer than 3 years are entitled to sick leave of up to 3 months on full 

salary and 3 months on half salary. UN employees who have completed 3 

or more years of service are entitled to up to 9 months of sick leave. In 

contrast, U.S. civil service employees earn 4 hours of sick leave per pay 

period, or 1 day per month, and may carry over unlimited amounts of sick 

leave into subsequent years. In addition, UN employees are entitled to 

paid maternity and paternity leave as well as paid leave to adopt a child, 

which is not offered to U.S. civil service employees; they are entitled to 

take certain amounts of time away from work for these purposes, but 

must use either their paid leave or unpaid leave under the Family and 

Medical Leave Act to account for their absences. Both UN and U.S. 

employees have 10 holidays per year, though this number may vary for 

UN employees depending on their duty station. U.S. civil service 

employees have some types of paid leave not available to UN Secretariat 

employees, including leave to serve as a juror or a witness, leave for 

bone marrow and organ donation, limited amounts of leave for certain 

types of military service, and leave sharing programs which allow 

employees to donate annual leave to colleagues who have certain 

emergency needs. Table 4 compares leave benefits for UN and U.S. civil 

service employees.

Table 4: Comparison of Leave Benefits for UN Secretariat and U.S. Civil Service Employees

UN employees U.S. Civil Service employees

Annual leave UN employees on fixed-term contracts accrue 

2.5 working days per month (30 days per year), 

and may carry over up to 60 days per year. 

Full-time employees with fewer than 3 years of service earn 4 

hours annual leave per bi-weekly pay period (13 days per year.) 

Those with 3 but less than 15 years of service earn 6 hours of 

annual leave per bi-weekly pay period and 10 hours of annual in 

the last pay period of the year (20 days per year.) Those with 15 

or more years of service earn 8 hours per bi-weekly pay period 

(26 days per year). Senior Executive Service, Senior Level, 

Scientific or Professional employees and employees in 

equivalent pay systems earn 8 hours of leave per bi-weekly pay 

period, regardless of years of service. At its discretion, an 

agency may advance annual leave to an employee in an amount 

not to exceed the amount the employee would accrue within the 

year. Employees stationed in the United States may carry over 

30 days of annual leave. Those stationed overseas may carry 

over 45 days, and Senior Executive Service employees may 

carry over 90 days. 
 

Page 28 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

UN employees U.S. Civil Service employees

Sick leave Employees with fewer than 3 years of service are 

entitled to up to 3 months of full salary and 3 

months on half salary, of certified sick leave.

Employees with more than 3 years of service are 

entitled to up to 9 months of full salary and 9 

months of half salary of certified sick leave.

Employees are also entitled to up to 7 days of 

uncertified sick leave, which can be used for 

purposes such as family emergencies. UN 

employee sick leave does not accumulate.

Full-time employees accrue 4 hours of sick leave for each biweekly pay period (13 days per year.) There is no limitation on 

the amount of sick leave that can be accumulated. There is no 

limitation on how much sick leave an employee may use for his 

or her own personal medical needs. A full-time employee may 

only use up to 13 days of sick leave for general family care and 

bereavement purposes and up to 12 weeks of sick leave to care 

for a family member with a serious health condition each year.

An employee is entitled to no more than a combined total of 12 

weeks of sick leave each year for all family care purposes. At its 

discretion, an agency may advance up to 13 or 30 days of sick 

leave (depending on the reason for which sick leave is 

advanced) to an employee, when required by the exigencies of 

the situation, for the same reasons it grants sick leave to an 

employee. . 

Maternity leave Leave with full pay for a total period of 16 weeks 

(usually 6 weeks prior to anticipated date of 

delivery and 10 weeks after birth.) Annual leave 

accrues during maternity leave if employee 

returns to work after a maximum of 6 months.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows a birth mother 

to use up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave after childbirth. A birth 

mother may also use accrued sick leave and annual leave for 

pregnancy and childbirth. 

Paternity leave Employees are entitled to leave with pay for up to 

4 weeks (up to 8 weeks within the 12 months 

following the child’s birth).

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows a birth father 

to use up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave after childbirth. A birth 

father may also use up to 12 weeks of sick leave and accrued 

annual leave to care for the mother during pregnancy and 

childbirth.

Adoption leave Employees are entitled to special leave with full 

pay for the adoption of a child.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows parents to use 

up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to adopt a child. Parents may 

also use accrued sick and annual leave for purposes related to 

the adoption of a child.

Special leave Employees are entitled to full, partial, or no pay 

for advanced study or research in the interest of 

the organization.

Official holidays 10 holidays per year. 10 federal holidays per year. In addition, federal employees 

located in Washington, D.C., may receive a federal holiday on 

Inauguration Day, which occurs every 4 years.

Source: GAO analysis of UN and Office of Personnel Management data.
 

Page 29 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

UN employee allowances are generally similar to the allowances that are 

offered to U.S. civil service employees serving overseas.22

One example of an allowance that the UN offers to its employees is rental 

subsidies. UN employees who are newly appointed or reassigned are 

eligible for this entitlement, which is paid to staff members who are 

generally paying higher rent than what the UN considers to be an average 

cost for their duty station. Newly hired employees or employees assigned 

to another duty station are eligible for the rental subsidy for 7 years, and 

the subsidy declines over time. UN officials explained that the UN’s 

rationale for offering this rental subsidy is that over time, an employee 

should adjust to their new duty station and find more economical 

accommodations than they might when they first arrive. For example, an 

employee who earns a monthly salary of $6,687 might qualify for a 

maximum rental subsidy of $866 a month if the employee’s rent is $2,164 

but the UN has determined that the reasonable maximum monthly level is 

$1070.

The UN offers 

numerous allowances, such as education and travel benefits, some of 

which are intended to compensate their staff for extra expenses that they 

may incur if they are moving to another country to work for the UN. The 

rules of eligibility for these allowances vary, so a UN employee’s eligibility 

for an allowance depends on their individual circumstances. U.S. civil 

service employees working outside of the United States are eligible for 

some similar allowances. It is difficult to compare UN Secretariat 

allowances with U.S. civil service allowances because the allowances can 

vary widely across employees, depending on where they are located, 

their salary level, and whether they have dependents.

UN employees who are serving outside their home country are also 

eligible for education grants to cover part of the cost of educating their 

children. This allowance covers 75 percent of costs for children up to age 

25 and up to the fourth year of postsecondary education. The maximum 

that the UN will pay varies by country. As of August 2012, the proposed 

maximum education grant for employees working in the United States 

was $32,255. In addition, the UN pays 100 percent of boarding costs for 

employees posted at some locations where educational facilities are 

inadequate, in addition to the education grant, up to a maximum amount. 

 

22For a list of UN employee allowances and comparable allowances for U.S. civil service 

employees posted overseas, please see Appendix V.

UN Allowances Are Similar 

to Allowances for U.S. 

Civil Service Employees 

Serving Overseas

Rental Subsidy

Education Grant
 

Page 30 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

The UN also provides travel expenses for the child for one return journey 

each year between the school and the duty station, if they are in different

countries. If employees are reassigned to their home country after having 

been eligible for an education grant, they may, to ease the transition, 

continue to receive the grant for the balance of the school year.

Other allowances that the UN offers to its employees include 

dependency, hardship, and mobility allowances, as described below:

• Children’s allowance. The UN offers an annual, flat-rate children’s 

allowance to all eligible staff. As of August 2012, the amount was 

$2,929 per child under age 18, or under age 21 if the child was a fulltime student. Professional staff with children who do not have a 

dependent spouse are not eligible for the children’s allowance for their 

first child because they are paid at the dependent rate, though they 

would receive the allowance for other eligible children.

• Mobility allowance. The UN provides a mobility allowance to staff on 

an assignment of 1 year or more who have had 5 consecutive years 

of service in the UN system. As of January 2012, the mobility

allowance ranged from $2,020 to $16,900. Employees qualify for the 

mobility allowance if they have accrued 5 consecutive years of service 

in the UN system. The amount an employee receives varies by the 

number of assignments, the duty station category whether the 

employee has dependents, and the employee’s salary grade.

• Hardship allowance. The UN provides a hardship allowance to staff 

on assignment in duty stations where living and working conditions 

are difficult. The hardship allowance varies by position level and 

dependency status. The allowance varies depending on the 

employee’s duty station, salary level, and whether the employee has 

dependents. As of August 2012, the allowance ranged from $4,360 to 

$22,680. 

Most of the U.S. allowances that are similar to UN allowances apply only 

to a small percentage of U.S. civil service employees, specifically those 

serving overseas. As of December 2012, according to OPM data, 

approximately 2 percent of US federal civil service employees in 

professional and administrative occupations were working in other 

Other Allowances 
 

Page 31 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

countries.23 These U.S. civil service employees serving overseas are 

eligible for housing allowances, relocation expenses, education 

allowances, and hazard pay, among others.

Since the UN was founded in 1945, it has used U.S. civil service salaries 

as the basis for establishing its own salaries in an effort to attract civil 

servants from all over the world, including from the countries that pay the 

highest civil service salaries. The UN compensation package includes a 

base salary and a cost-of-living adjustment designed to enable UN 

employees to adhere to the same standard of living no matter where in 

the world they are posted. The package also includes retirement benefits, 

health insurance, and allowances that compensate staff for living

overseas. UN salaries have risen compared with U.S. civil service 

salaries since 2002, but ICSC’s annual margin calculation has helped the 

UN to ensure that the difference between its salaries and U.S. civil 

service salaries has generally remained within the approved range of 110 

and 120 percent. Although we determined that ICSC’s margin calculation

relies on a reasonable set of assumptions, we also found that reasonable 

alternative scenarios would change the results. However, without an 

adequate description of ICSC’s current process and the underlying 

assumptions, member states cannot effectively evaluate whether ICSC’s 

process represents the most appropriate method of comparing the two 

populations, or determine if another approach would address the General 

Assembly resolution. Since ICSC uses the margin as the primary basis 

for making recommendations to adjust UN salaries, member states need 

this information to adequately consider ICSC’s recommendations before 

deciding whether to accept or reject them.

To enable member states to effectively oversee ICSC’s process for 

setting and adjusting salaries and ensure that its work is in line with 

General Assembly decisions, the Secretary of State should direct the U.S. 

Mission to the UN to work with other member states to request that ICSC 

clarify its process and the underlying assumptions for comparing UN and 

U.S. salaries and make this information available to member states.

 

23These data are from OPM’s Enterprise Human Resources Integration data warehouse, 

which is made available through OPM’s FedScope program. The data exclude certain 

agencies in the Executive branch and the Legislative branch, and all Judiciary branch 

agencies.

Conclusions 

Recommendation for 

Executive Action
 

Page 32 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

We provided a draft of this report for comment to the Secretary of State; 

the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who transmitted the draft to 

ICSC; and the Acting Director of OPM. OPM and ICSC provided us with 

technical comments, which we incorporated into the report as 

appropriate. State and ICSC also provided written comments, which are 

reprinted in appendices VI and VII. 

State agreed with our recommendation and noted that it believes that our 

report provides timely and useful information that will support its efforts to 

make sure that UN compensation can attract and retain talented staff 

while ensuring fiscal discipline at the UN. State responded that it would 

have been useful for the report to express an opinion about which of the 

alternative assumptions would be optimal for ICSC; to examine the 

justification for the margin range of 110 to 120 percent; and to quantify 

the value of UN and U.S. benefits and allowances. We provided 

information about ICSC’s process so that member states may have a 

better understanding of how ICSC calculates the margin. We did not 

comment on the justification for setting the margin range at 110 to 120 

percent of U.S. civil service salaries, because that was outside the scope 

of our review. We plan to provide more in-depth information on the value 

of the allowances and benefits for both UN professional staff and U.S. 

civil service employees in a forthcoming report. 

ICSC’s letter expressed concern about our use of the cost-of-labor factor 

as one of the alternative margin calculation scenarios, noting that the 

cost-of-living factor that it uses in the margin calculation is also used in 

the post adjustment system. ICSC also pointed out that our reference to 

our Standards for Internal Controls in the Federal Government as criteria 

for information standards does not apply to ICSC, and that they are 

confident that their methodology is transparent and has been fully 

described and explained. With regard to our use of the cost-of-labor 

factor, we noted that since UN’s remuneration system is based on the 

Noblemaire Principle, and accordingly UN salaries are based on U.S. civil 

service salaries, it is reasonable to consider using the same calculation 

that the U.S. government uses in setting its own locality pay. We also 

noted that when we changed this assumption in an alternative scenario, it 

resulted in a calculation of the margin that was above the 110 to 120 

range. With regard to ICSC’s transparency in reporting, we also noted 

that we were not able to fully describe the margin process until after 

extensive document review, use of supplemental data, and several 

interviews with ICSC officials. Finally, with regard to our use of our own 

criteria for clarity of information, while we acknowledge that these 

standards do not apply to ICSC, we note that this is a best practice and 

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 33 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

that without such information, member states cannot effectively assess 

whether ICSC’s process best satisfies the General Assembly resolution. 

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

members, the Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to the United 

Nations, the OPM Acting Director and other interested parties. In addition, 

the report is available at no charge on the GAO Website at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact 

me at (202) 512-9601 or melitot@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 

page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report 

are listed in appendix VIII.

Thomas Melito

Director, International Affairs and Trade
 

Page 34 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

List of Requesters

The Honorable Bob Corker

Ranking Member

Committee on Foreign Relations

United States Senate

The Honorable Lindsey Graham

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable John Barrasso 

United States Senate

The Honorable Richard Burr

United States Senate

The Honorable Tom Coburn

United States Senate

The Honorable James Inhofe

United States Senate

The Honorable Johnny Isakson

United States Senate

The Honorable Mike Lee

United States Senate

The Honorable James Risch

United States Senate

The Honorable Marco Rubio

United States Senate
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 35 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

This report examines (1) how the United Nations (UN) sets salaries for 

Secretariat professional staff; (2) how the UN compares its employees’ 

salaries with U.S. civil service salaries, including the assumptions 

underlying its process; and (3) how benefits and allowances provided to 

UN employees compare with benefits and allowances provided to U.S. 

civil service employees. 

To examine how the UN sets salaries for Secretariat professional staff, 

we reviewed relevant documents and data from the UN, including 

International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) annual reports and other 

documents, and General Assembly resolutions. We conducted interviews 

in New York City, New York, with several UN offices, including ICSC, and 

the Office of Program Planning, Budget and Accounts. We met with 

officials from ICSC’s Salaries and Allowances Division to obtain additional 

information on the UN’s process for setting base salaries and met with 

ICSC’s Cost of Living Division to obtain additional information on ICSC’s 

process for establishing post adjustments.

To examine how the UN compares its employees’ salaries with U.S. civil 

service salaries, including the assumptions underlying its process, we 

analyzed ICSC’s annual reports showing their calculation of the difference 

between UN employee and U.S. civil service salaries. We replicated 

some parts of their process by supplementing the data in ICSC’s 2012 

annual report with data received from ICSC and from published UN and 

U.S. salary scales and locality adjustments. We gathered data from ICSC 

and the UN Chief Executives’ Board for Coordination (CEB) documents to 

replicate ICSC’s margin calculation. We reviewed relevant documentation 

and interviewed ICSC officials, and determined these data were 

sufficiently reliable for the purposes of presenting the reported margin 

result from 2002 to 2012, and analyzing how alternative assumptions 

would affect the margin result. To obtain additional information on ICSC’s 

process for calculating the difference between UN and U.S. civil service 

salaries, we met with officials from ICSC and CEB. We reviewed relevant 

documents, including documents on ICSC’s grade equivalency study, 

margin calculation process, and the cost of living study used in the margin 

calculation. To supplement this information, we met with officials from the 

U.S. Mission to the UN in New York and three other member states to 

obtain their views on ICSC’s process for comparing UN and U.S. civil 

service salaries.

To examine how benefits and allowances provided to UN employees 

compare with benefits and allowances provided to U.S. civil service 

employees, we analyzed documents from ICSC and other UN 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 36 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

organizational units, as well as documents from the U.S. Office of 

Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of State. To obtain 

additional information on the benefits and allowances provided to 

professional staff of the Secretariat, we interviewed officials from the UN’s 

Office of Human Resources Management. We interviewed officials from 

the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund to obtain additional information on 

retirement benefits for UN staff members and met with officials from the 

Insurance Division of the UN’s Office of Human Resources Management 

to obtain additional information on health insurance plans available to UN 

staff members. We conducted interviews with U.S. government officials in 

Washington, D.C., including officials from OPM and State, to obtain 

additional information on benefits and allowances offered to U.S. civil 

servants.

We conducted this performance audit from August 2012 to May 2013 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: UN Staff Assessment and the Tax 

Equalization Fund

Page 37 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

As a part of its process for determining the base salary that an employee 

at each level receives, the United Nations (UN) deducts an amount, 

called the staff assessment, from the gross salary (see fig. 4). The UN 

deducts a higher staff assessment from staff members without 

dependents than from staff members with one or more dependents at the 

same grade and step. The staff assessment funds are credited to an 

account called the Tax Equalization Fund (TEF). Since policies regarding 

taxation of UN employees may vary among member states, the UN 

created the TEF as a means to reimburse staff members who are 

required to pay taxes to their home country and to equalize the net 

salaries of all UN staff members, regardless of their national tax 

obligations. Officials from the UN Secretariat’s budget office said that 

currently the United States is the only country that requires its citizens 

employed at the UN to pay taxes on their UN earnings. Therefore, in 

practice, the TEF is used to reimburse Americans employed at the UN for 

the federal, state, and local income taxes they pay on their UN earnings. 

All other member states, which do not require their citizens to pay taxes 

on their UN earnings, receive a portion of the TEF as a credit toward their 

assessed dues to the UN budget.

Appendix II: UN Staff Assessment and the 

Tax Equalization Fund
Appendix II: UN Staff Assessment and the Tax 

Equalization Fund

Page 38 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Figure 4: UN Deducts the Staff Assessment from Gross Salaries

The UN reviews staff assessment rates from time to time to ensure 

sufficient funds are available to reimburse staff members for taxes paid or 

to address any substantial increases in the fund. We previously reported 

that the amount of credits in the TEF had increased significantly over the 

period from 2002 to 2009.1

 

1

GAO, United Nations Renovations: Best Practices Could Enhance Future Cost Estimates

As a result of this increase, the UN’s budget 

office requested that ICSC lower staff assessment rates. The General 

Assembly approved ICSC’s recommendation and the updated staff 

assessment rates went into effect on January 1, 2012.

GAO-12-795 (Washington, D.C.; July 25, 2012).
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 39 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

In this appendix, we describe in detail the ICSC margin calculation 

process and discuss the assumptions underlying the process, which we 

have determined are reasonable because they enable ICSC to compare 

UN and U.S. salaries, as required by the General Assembly. Further, we 

present a range of potential alternatives to these assumptions, which 

would also reasonably enable ICSC to compare UN and U.S. salaries.

ICSC has a complex, six-step process for calculating the margin, or 

difference between, the average net salaries of UN professional staff in 

New York City and U.S. civil service employees in Washington, D.C., 

which relies on a reasonable set of assumptions, as noted in this report. 

Figure 5 presents a flow chart illustrating the six steps of the margin 

calculation process. 

Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and 

Alternatives

Steps in ICSC’s Net 

Salary Margin 

Calculation Process
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 40 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Figure 5: Steps in the International Civil Service Commission’s Net Salary Margin Calculation

Note: ICSC officials noted that some parts of steps 5 and 6 have been done in a different order, and 

not as completely separate steps. However, we found that the order of these steps does not change 

the calculated margin, and describing the steps separately increases the clarity of the process.
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 41 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Since its founding, the UN has set salaries for professional staff according 

to the Noblemaire Principle, which states that employees’ compensation 

should be set high enough to attract nationals from all member states, 

including those member states with the highest-compensated national 

civil service employees. In practice, ICSC has used net salary, rather than 

total compensation, to make this comparison in its annual margin 

calculation. Before ICSC can conduct the annual margin calculation, it 

must identify what it calls the comparator—the nation with the bestcompensated civil service employees.1

Phase I of ICSC’s methodology for the Noblemaire study reduces a list of 

candidate national civil services to a manageable number by comparing 

the average cash salaries of national civil service employees of selected 

nations. Only those nations deemed to have a reasonable possibility of 

replacing the current comparator are then considered for phase II, which 

involves the collection and evaluation of data on additional compensation 

elements.

The General Assembly endorsed 

ICSC’s recommendations to conduct a study to identify the comparator 

using a two-phase methodology. ICSC conducts the study, called the 

Noblemaire study, every 5 years.

ICSC begins phase I by identifying nations with a high enough level of 

economic resources to potentially qualify them as candidates to replace 

the United States as the comparator nation. For this step, it considers 

three sources of economic information: (1) the top 15 nations in per capita 

gross national income from a World Bank source, (2) the top 17 nations 

as determined by the U.S. Department of Labor based on per capita 

gross domestic product and employment rates, and (3) the 15 nations 

with the highest minimum wage according to the Global Wage Report 

from the International Labour Organization. ICSC selects for further 

consideration only nations that appear in at least two of these lists in 

phase I.

ICSC continues phase I by identifying nations with “significant numbers of 

staff at relevant levels.” ICSC excludes nations with small numbers of civil 

service staff relative to the number of staff in the UN common system 

because it needs to compare similar occupations, and civil services with 

 

1

For the purposes of the Noblemaire study, compensation is measured as total net salary 

and the value of major additional benefits, including pension, health insurance, and life 

and accident insurance.

Step 1: Determine Which 

Country Has the Highest 

Compensated Civil Service
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 42 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

small numbers of staff are not likely to have sizable populations of the 

same types of occupations as the UN. After excluding nations with small 

civil services, ICSC reviews the pay structure of the remaining countries 

and also excludes systems whose pay structures are unlikely to be 

comparable to the UN professional grades.

ICSC completes phase I by comparing the after-tax cash salary, including 

any cash bonuses, of civil service employees at headquarters locations of 

each civil service. They compare a midpoint salary between the entry 

level and highest senior level salaries for each civil service, and adjust 

these midpoint salaries for cost of living and exchange rates in each 

headquarters location. On the basis of the results of this analysis, ICSC 

issues a report to the General Assembly as to whether any of the highest 

paid countries might qualify to replace the United States as the 

comparator and recommends whether phase II should be conducted for 

any country deemed a possible candidate to become the comparator.

Phase II, when conducted, is a seven-step process. First, ICSC obtains a 

sample of occupations in each civil service comparable to UN 

professional and higher categories, and classifies them according to the 

UN grading system. For these positions, ICSC quantifies the after-tax 

cash and non-cash compensation, including the estimated value of 

retirement benefits, health, life, and accident insurance benefits for each, 

and adjusts the resulting numbers for cost of living and exchange rates at 

headquarters locations. Finally, ICSC recommends that the General 

Assembly choose the comparator with the highest net compensation, 

based on its phase II calculation and other considerations, such as the 

cost of switching comparators. The General Assembly then decides 

whether the United States should remain the comparator or be replaced 

by a nation with higher net compensation for its national civil service 

employees.

Every 5 years, ICSC conducts a three-step grade equivalency study to 

determine which UN salary grades are equivalent to the civil service 

salary grades of the comparator. First, the UN’s Chief Executives Board 

for Coordination (CEB) collects individual data on staff receiving the 

dependency rate salary from all UN common system organizations. 

Second, ICSC analyzes the UN staff data to determine the most populous 

occupations in the UN common system. ICSC officials said they aim to 

include occupations representing approximately 80 percent of all UN 

professional staff. Third, ICSC matches the most populous UN 

occupations to U.S. occupations. To do so, ICSC obtains data from the 

Step 2: Match UN and U.S. 

Pay Scales by Occupation
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 43 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on U.S. civil service staff living in 

the Washington, D.C., area and analyzes these data to determine likely 

occupation matches based on similar job titles and professional expertise. 

ICSC then analyzes job descriptors of these matches and applies UN 

criteria to determine how they would be graded under the UN system. 

Because these steps introduce an element of subjectivity, which could 

potentially threaten the validity of the results, ICSC has OPM check these 

determinations for validity against U.S. criteria. Finally, ICSC creates a 

grade equivalency matrix with the results, which shows for each specific 

occupation type in a U.S. grade how often it is classified in particular UN 

grades.2

For the third step in the margin calculation, ICSC calculates the average 

salary of UN professional staff in New York by grade. To do so, ICSC first 

obtains data on all UN professional staff and then filters this data to match 

the assumptions of the previous steps. Specifically, ICSC filters out all 

staff who are not located in New York, then all employees who receive 

the single rate, and then employees who are not in the most populous 

occupations identified in the most recent grade equivalency study. Once 

ICSC has narrowed the data set through this filtering process, it 

calculates the average salary of professional staff in New York in each 

grade.

For the fourth step in the margin calculation, ICSC calculates the average 

salary, after taxes, of U.S. civil service employees by grade. This step 

includes five substeps. First, ICSC purchases data each year from OPM 

that includes individual occupations, salaries, and General Service grade 

levels of U.S. civil service employees in Washington, D.C. Second, ICSC

filter these data to include only occupations that appear in the most recent 

grade equivalency study. Third, ICSC treats all U.S. civil service 

employees as if they are married, filing jointly, and uses publicly available 

data on federal tax filings in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia to 

estimate the percentage of those tax filers in each of two groups: those 

who claim the standard deduction and those who itemize deductions. 

ICSC then applies these percentages to the OPM data on U.S. civil 

service employees in Washington, D.C., to estimate the number of 

 

2

U.S. grades include the General Schedule grades 9-15 and Senior Executive Service.

Step 3: Calculate UN 

Average Salary by Grade

Step 4: Calculate U.S. 

Average Salary by Grade
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 44 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

employees for each occupation type and grade that claim the standard 

deduction versus the number that itemize deductions. For the first group, 

ICSC determines the after-tax net salaries by subtracting the standard 

deduction, and for the second group, it subtracts the average itemized 

deduction. Third, using tax tables from Washington, D.C., Maryland, and 

Virginia, ICSC determines the net salaries after state taxes by subtracting 

the appropriate tax amount from each individual salary. Once these steps 

have been performed, ICSC uses the grade equivalency matrix to match 

the U.S. employee grade levels into the UN grade system. Finally, once 

distributed among UN grades, ICSC calculates the average salary, by UN 

grade.

ICSC calculates the ratios between UN professional staff in New York 

and U.S. civil service employees in Washington, D.C., for each grade, 

and adjusts those ratios to reflect the distribution of UN staff across 

grades from step 3 using weights based on the proportion of UN staff in 

each grade. Each of these ratios could be considered a margin for an 

individual grade. This is the simplest step of the margin calculation 

process, as the average UN salary in a grade is divided by the average 

U.S. salary in that grade, and then multiplied by the weight for that grade.

Once the initial ratios are calculated, ICSC adjusts them based on the 

cost of living in the two headquarters locations. This adjustment is similar 

to the post adjustment, which also represents a cost of living estimate. 

ICSC hires an independent contractor to conduct a study of the cost of 

living in the two locations every 2 years. This contractor develops cost-ofliving estimates based on several categories of spending that are 

common between the two populations in their respective locations, 

including selected goods and services, transportation, and housing. 

Ultimately, this study provides a single adjustment factor, which ICSC 

applies to each of the weighted average salary ratios from step 5. The 

adjustment factor, like the UN post adjustment, represents a measure of 

purchasing power. However, the post adjustment is developed using 

information from only UN employees, while this adjustment factor is 

based on information from a much larger population. Finally, after ICSC 

applies the cost-of-living adjustment factor to the average salary ratio for 

each grade, it calculates the overall margin by summing the adjusted ratio 

values for all grades.

Step 5: Calculate the 

Margin for Each Grade

Step 6: Adjust for Cost of 

Living 
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 45 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

We determined that ICSC’s margin calculation process relies on eight 

assumptions, each of which affects the annually calculated margin (see 

table 5). ICSC introduces two assumptions when conducting the 

Noblemaire study. First, ICSC assumes that civil service employees 

receive a similar amount of total national income across potential 

comparators. This assumption is implicit in the decision to use the 

measures of average per capita wages as an exclusion criterion in phase 

I of the study. Underlying these exclusion criteria is an assumption that 

general economic indicators are likely to identify the nations with the 

highest production and highest wages and that the nation with the highest 

compensated civil service would be found among them. However, 

because these criteria are not related directly to data on the salary 

received by civil service employees, it is possible that nations whose civil 

service salaries are high relative to the general population are being 

excluded. Second, by focusing comparisons on headquarters locations, 

ICSC assumes that employees in these locations are the most 

appropriate comparison group. According to ICSC officials, this 

assumption enables them to focus calculations on the locations with the 

most staff for each organization. For consistency, ICSC also limits its 

comparisons to the headquarters locations in steps 2 through 6 of the 

process.

Assumptions in 

ICSC’s Margin 

Calculation Process
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 46 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Table 5: Assumptions the International Civil Service Commission Makes in the Margin Calculation Process

Steps Assumption Impact on margin calculation process

1 Per capita income is 

representative of civil service 

salaries in a country.

Potentially leads to exclusion of countries with civil service salaries that are 

outliers relative to their country’s average, but provides a simple way to narrow 

the list of comparators.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Employees in headquarters 

locations are representative of all 

employees.

Potentially excludes employees in locations that are outliers relative to 

headquarters, but reduces time and staff needed for step 6 while focusing on 

areas with the most employees.

2, 3, 4, 5 Employees receiving the 

dependency rate are 

representative of UN salary of all 

professional staff.

Excludes employees without dependents, who are paid lower salaries and who 

are more likely to be distributed at the lower UN grades, but prevents shocks in 

the annual margin calculation due to the greater stability of dependency rate 

employees.

2, 3, 4, 5 Occupations with the most staff 

are representative of all UN 

occupations.

Excludes employees in occupations with fewer staff who may be paid differently 

than those in more common occupations, but increases the likelihood that there 

are sufficient data to draw a comparison between UN and U.S. civil service 

employees.

3, 4, 5 The proportion of staff in each 

occupation is relatively stable for a 

5-year period.

Includes occupations in the annual margin calculation that may have shrunk and 

excludes those that may have grown since the most recent grade equivalency 

study, but reduces the cost of conducting more frequent grade equivalency 

studies.

4, 5 All U.S. civil service employees 

are married and file jointly.

Decreases the accuracy of U.S. average net salary calculations, but enables 

ICSC to make a comparison despite limited data and uses the U.S. filing status 

that is most comparable to the UN dependency rate.

4, 5 U.S. civil service employees use 

the average deductions in their 

state.

Decreases the accuracy of U.S. average net salary calculations, but enables 

ICSC to make a comparison despite limited data on U.S. civil service employees’ 

state income taxes.

6 Differences in salary between two 

locations are associated with the 

cost of living in those locations.

Margin comparison considers the purchasing power of employees rather than the 

cost of labor for those employees as in U.S. locality pay differentials, but the 

former is consistent with the UN’s post adjustment.

Legend: Step 1 = Determine which country has the best paid civil service; Step 2 = Match UN and 

U.S. pay scales, by occupation; Step 3 = Calculate UN average salary by grade; Step 4 = Calculate 

U.S. average salary by grade; Step 5 = Calculate the margin for each grade; Step 6 = Adjust for cost 

of living.

Source: GAO analysis of ICSC source documents and interviews.

ICSC introduces two additional assumptions in the grade equivalency 

study. First, it assumes that employees receiving the dependent rate are 

the most appropriate population for this comparison of UN and U.S. 

salary grades. This assumption stems from ICSC’s decision to limit the 

comparison to employees with dependents, and officials said it decreases 

the year-to-year volatility of the margin because it excludes single-rate 

employees. This assumption also applies to steps 3 through 5 of the 

margin calculation process. Second, ICSC assumes that the most 

populous occupations constitute the most appropriate population for the 

margin comparison. This assumption is also implicit and results from the 

decision to exclude populations with a small number of staff. This 
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 47 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

assumption reduces the time and staff needed to review job descriptors 

and generate the grade equivalency matrix. However, it also limits the 

occupations that can be considered in steps 3 through 5.

ICSC uses a fifth assumption in step three of its process. Specifically, 

ICSC assumes that the most populous occupations in the year of the 

margin calculation are similar to the most populous occupations in the 

most recent grade equivalency study. This assumption is unstated but is 

a result of the grade equivalency study being conducted every 5 years, 

and also applies to steps 4 and 5. By using this assumption, ICSC 

reduces the time and staff resources that would be needed for more 

frequent grade equivalency studies.

When calculating U.S. average salaries, ICSC introduces two more 

assumptions, both related to how ISCS adjusts U.S. gross salaries to net 

salaries after taxes. According to ICSC officials, these assumptions are 

necessary because ICSC does not have access to individual tax data for 

U.S. citizens. The first assumption is that all U.S. civil service employees 

file their taxes as married, filing jointly. The second is that the amount of 

those itemizing deductions is similar to the total population in their state of 

residence and that their average amount of deductions is likewise similar. 

ICSC uses the first assumption because the married, filing jointly tax 

status is the one most similar to the UN’s salary rate for employees with 

dependents. ICSC uses the second assumption because this adjustment 

for the amount of taxes paid results in a more accurate average net salary 

than if no adjustment were used. Both of these assumptions affect the 

ratio calculations in step 5.

ICSC introduces an eighth assumption when it adjusts the ratios from 

step 5 for the cost of living. By choosing to use a cost of living adjustment, 

ICSC is implicitly assuming that any difference in salaries between two 

locations is a result of the cost of goods and services in those locations. 

This assumption is commonly used in economic analyses to control for 

cost differences in different locations and results in a more accurate 

margin calculation than if no adjustment were made.

As noted in this report, we determined that ICSC’s assumptions were 

reasonable, but that other assumptions, which are also reasonable, would 

change the results. The alternative assumptions described in this section 

represent illustrative examples and are not intended to be a 

comprehensive list. Further, because any determination of the most 

appropriate alternative is dependent on the need for information to make 

Alternative 

Assumptions 
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 48 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

decisions, and because member states and the General Assembly are 

ultimately the users of this information, we are not endorsing ICSC’s 

assumptions or any of these alternatives as the most appropriate. 

Instead, we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of individual assumptions 

to present tradeoffs that could be considered by decision makers when 

deciding which assumptions are the most appropriate for their information 

needs.

ICSC’s assumption that per capita income is representative of civil 

service salaries in a country is a low-cost way to reduce the number of 

countries for which it must do further calculations in the Noblemaire study 

because it allows for the use of readily available data and is at least 

somewhat related to the actual income of civil servants in those countries. 

However, this assumption may lead to the exclusion of outlier countries 

where civil services receive unusually high or low salaries, relative to the 

general population. To avoid the potential for unintentionally excluding 

countries that pay their civil service abnormally high salaries, ICSC could 

modify its exclusion criteria with some data related to actual government 

pay in member states, or by comparing cash compensation for civil 

service employees in all member states. The first option would maintain 

the benefit of requiring ICSC to compare only a subset of countries but 

may be more costly because data on government salaries in all countries 

are not readily available and might have to be gathered or purchased. 

The second option would guarantee that no countries are excluded 

unintentionally but would require ICSC to perform analysis on all member 

countries, which would likely be much more costly and time-consuming 

than the current approach because of both the lack of data from many 

countries and the magnitude of analysis that would be required.

ICSC’s assumption that employees in headquarters locations are 

representative of all employees is beneficial because these locations tend 

to have a wide representation of occupations, and because limiting the 

comparison to two locations requires less time and staff resources than a 

comparison that includes all duty stations. However, if civil service staff 

outside of headquarters locations are systematically different from those 

in headquarters locations, this may reduce the accuracy of the margin 

calculation because the result may not be representative of all UN 

professional staff or of the entire civil service of the comparator. As one 

alternative, ICSC could choose to compare the UN and United States in a 

single location, which would simplify ICSC’s process by eliminating the 

need for a cost-of-living adjustment, but which might reduce ICSC’s ability 

to have a wide representation of occupations. As another alternative, 

ICSC could compare UN and U.S. employees in multiple locations, which 
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 49 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

would mitigate the risk of excluding or misrepresenting the respective 

staff but would increase the complexity of the process by requiring 

additional cost-of-living adjustments. This approach would also likely 

require increased time and resources to conduct the additional analysis.

According to ICSC officials, the assumption that employees receiving the 

dependent rate are the most appropriate population for the margin 

comparison has the benefit of increasing the stability of the margin 

calculation. However, this assumption leads to the exclusion of single-rate 

employees at the UN. As noted in our analysis of alternatives, ICSC could 

choose to include only single-rate employees, or they could choose to 

consider employees both with and without dependents. The first option 

could be beneficial if single-rate employees could be compared more 

directly to a particular U.S. tax filing status, but this option would also be 

limited because it would exclude employees with dependents. The 

second option would likely increase the accuracy of the margin 

calculation because no employees would be systematically excluded, but 

it could potentially result in more year-to-year fluctuation in the value of 

the margin, according to ICSC officials.

ICSC’s assumption that the most populous occupations are the most 

appropriate population for the margin comparison also supports ICSC’s 

goal of having stability in the calculation. This is because the average 

salaries of occupations with a low number of staff are affected more by an 

individual with a salary that is an outlier within the corresponding 

occupation and grade. However, as in the previous exclusion, this 

assumption further reduces the subset of employees included at the 

margin calculation. As an alternative, ICSC could determine grade 

equivalencies by including all employees in all occupations, which would 

result in a comparison of the full population of UN professional staff in 

New York with the full U.S. civil service in Washington, D.C. However, 

such a change would be more complex, costly, and time consuming than 

the current approach. According to ICSC officials, it could also result in 

less stability of the margin calculation over time.

ICSC assumes that the most populous occupations in the year of the

margin calculation are similar to the most populous occupations in the 

most recent grade equivalency study. This assumption allows ICSC to 

conduct a grade equivalency study every 5 years. However, the 

distribution of occupations does change over time, and occasionally can 

do so abruptly. For example, ICSC said that some occupations, such as 

the position of librarian, have fallen off the list over time. As a result, in 

each year, the margin result reflects the difference in pay of occupations 
Appendix III: ICSC’s Margin Calculation 

Process: Steps, Assumptions, and Alternatives

Page 50 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

that were most populous in the year of the grade equivalency study, and 

not necessarily in the year of that specific margin calculation. ICSC could 

conduct the grade equivalency study less often, which might reduce the 

number of times such a study had to be paid for, but would also increase 

the likelihood that changes in the distribution of occupations are 

obscuring changes in the margin. ICSC could also choose to conduct the 

study more often, which would reduce this likelihood, but would also 

require the extra time and resources needed to conduct the study more 

frequently. ICSC could also perform some simplified analysis to assess 

whether the distribution of occupations has likely changed since the most 

recent grade equivalency study, which would provide a basis for deciding 

whether another study was needed. The costs and benefits of this option 

would depend on the complexity of this analysis, the cost of performing it, 

and the resulting frequency of grade equivalency studies.

ICSC’s two assumptions about U.S. taxes are interrelated because both 

are a result of the data ICSC uses for the margin calculation. Because 

ICSC does not have data on the filing status of civil service employees, it 

assumes that everyone is married, filing jointly, and that they itemize their 

deductions at similar rates and in similar amounts to other employees in 

their state of residence. These assumptions enable a comparison with the 

UN dependent-rate employees, but because ICSC has not validated the 

assumptions against actual tax filing data of U.S. civil service employees, 

its estimates of tax liabilities may not be accurate. ICSC could attempt to 

obtain data on the filing status and amounts paid by U.S. civil service 

staff; however, it is likely that these data would be restricted from ICSC 

due to privacy concerns, or could be costly to procure.

ICSC assumes that a comparison of purchasing power, as defined by the 

cost of living, is the most appropriate measure for comparing the salaries 

of the two populations. This assumption is consistent with the UN post 

adjustment system, which seeks to equalize purchasing power across UN 

posts and is commonly used to control for differences in the cost of living 

in two locations. However, a cost-of-labor measure, such as the locality 

pay system used by the U.S. civil service, could be a reasonable 

alternative. As with cost of living, cost of labor is commonly used to 

control for differences in wages in two locations. Using the U.S. locality 

pay adjustments would have the benefit that it could be done at a lower

cost, as opposed to ICSC’s current practice of contracting an independent 

study, but would have the drawback of being a departure from the UN’s 

practice of using cost of living in its pay-setting process.
Appendix IV: UN and U.S. Civil Service 

Retirement Benefits

Page 51 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

United Nations United States Civil Service

Retirement age 

(normal retirement and 

early retirement)

Normal retirement age is 60 for employees 

who began working at the UN before January 

1, 1990. Normal retirement age is 62 for 

employees who began working at the UN after 

January 1, 1990.

Participants whose age at separation is at 

least 55 years but less than normal retirement 

age and have at least 5 years of service are 

eligible for a reduced retirement benefit

The retirement age for UN employees hired 

on or after January 1, 2014, is 65. 

Under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), full 

retirement age is 55 with 30 years of service, age 60 with 20 

years of service, or age 62 with 5 years of service.

CSRS participants who retire before age 55 are eligible for a 

reduced retirement benefit.

For Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) 

employees, normal retirement age is 60 with at least 20 

years of service or 62 with at least 5 years of service. A 

person with 30 years or more of service may retire earlier; 

the minimum retirement age ranges from 55 to 57.

A FERS employee at the minimum retirement age is eligible 

to retire with at least 10, but less than 30 years of service, at 

a reduced benefit.

For both CSRS and FERS, employees may retire early for 

involuntary separations or during major reorganizations or 

reductions in force. For CSRS, employees can retire early at 

any age with 25 years of service. For FERS, employees can 

retire at age 50 with 20 years of service, or at any age with 

25 years of service.

Retirement contribution The current rate of contribution to the Fund is 

23.7 percent of pensionable remuneration.

The employee pays 1/3, or 7.9 percent, of that 

amount. The UN pays the remaining 2/3, or 

15.8 percent. 

Most CSRS employees contribute 7 percent of their salary 

and the employer contributes a matching amount.

In fiscal year 2012, FERS employees contributed 0.8 percent 

of their salary and the employer paid 11.9 percent, for a total 

of 12.7 percent.

As of January 1, 2013, newly hired employees covered by 

FERS must contribute 3.1 percent and the employer 

contribution is 9.6 percent.

FERS employees also contribute to the Defined Contribution 

Plan (Thrift Savings Plan).

Certain groups of federal employees have different 

retirement contribution levels under CSRS and FERS. Law 

enforcement officers and firefighters, congressional 

employees, members of congress, bankruptcy judges, 

judges of the United States Court of Military Appeals, and 

United States magistrates have higher contribution rates.

Appendix IV: UN and U.S. Civil Service 

Retirement Benefits 
Appendix IV: UN and U.S. Civil Service 

Retirement Benefits

Page 52 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

United Nations United States Civil Service

Retirement benefit For employees who reach full retirement age 

and have at least 5 years of service, the 

annual pension is calculated as 1.5 percent of 

the final average remuneration for each of the 

first 5 years of service, plus 1.75 percent of 

the final average remuneration for each of the 

next 5 years of service, plus 2 percent of the 

final average remuneration for each year of 

service between year 10 and year 35 of 

service; plus an additional 1 percent of final 

average remuneration for any years of service 

above 35, up to a maximum total 

accumulation rate of 70 percent of final 

average remuneration.

Final average remuneration generally means 

the highest average salary (or pensionable 

remuneration) for 36 months of the last 5 

years of service.

CSRS employee annual retirement benefit is calculated as 

1.5 percent of the high three salary for each of the first 5 

years of service, plus 1.75 percent of the high 3 salary for 

each of the next 5 years of service, plus 2 percent of the 

high-three salary for each year of service beyond year 10, up 

to a maximum of 80 percent of the high-three salary plus 

credit for unused sick leave. The high-three salary is defined 

as the highest average salary over any contiguous 3-year 

period of service.

For FERS employees age 62 or older, and with 20 years or 

more of service, the annual retirement benefit is calculated 

as 1.1 percent of the high-three salary for each year of 

service. For FERS employees retiring earlier than age 62 or 

with less than 20 years of service, the annual retirement 

benefit is 1 percent of the high-three salary for each year of 

service. 

Defined contribution 

plan

No UN equivalent Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)

CSRS: Employees may contribute income to TSP up to 

federal limit. Government does not match contributions.

FERS: Government contributes 1 percent of pay 

automatically to TSP. Employees may contribute pre-or posttax income to TSP up to the federal limit ($17,500 in 2013).

The government matches up to 4 percent.

Disability benefit Disability benefits payable when a participant 

cannot perform his or her duties because of 

injury or illness of permanent or long duration.

CSRS: Employees are eligible for disability retirement at any 

age, with at least 5 years of service. Employees must have a 

disability expected to last at least 1 year.

FERS: Employees are eligible for disability retirement at any 

age, with at least 18 months of service. Employees must 

have a disability expected to last at least 1 year.

Widow and widower 

benefit

Widow and widower benefits payable to 

surviving spouse if participant was entitled to 

retirement benefits or died while in service. 

A monthly survivor annuity is available to employees who 

have worked for at least 18 months, were covered by 

FERS/CSRS and provided that the widow/widower meets 

certain conditions.

Note: The spouse of a FERS-covered employee may be 

eligible for the Basic Employee Death Benefit, which is equal 

to 50 percent of the employee’s final salary (average salary, 

if higher), plus $15,000. The $15,000 has increased to 

$30,792.98 for deaths on or after December 1, 2011. 

Dependent children 

benefits

Benefits payable to dependent children of 

employees who are entitled to retirement or 

disability benefits or who died while in service.

Benefits paid up to age 21. Benefits are 

payable to a dependent child over 21 if child is 

incapacitated by illness or injury. 

Unmarried children who are dependent upon the 

employee/annuitant may receive monthly benefits until they 

reach age 18, marry, or die. Monthly survivor annuity 

payments for a child can continue after age 18, if the child is 

a full-time student attending a recognized school. Benefits 

can continue until age 22.

Secondary dependent 

benefits

Secondary dependent benefits payable to a 

survivor, such as mother or father, of an

employee who was entitled to retirement 

benefits and died in service. 

If the employee has no spouse or children, a payment may 

be made to the employee’s parents, the administrator of the 

employee’s estate, or next of kin as determined in the laws 

of the employee’s state. 
Appendix IV: UN and U.S. Civil Service 

Retirement Benefits

Page 53 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Source: GAO analysis of UN and Office of Personnel Management data.

Note:

a

CSRS generally applied to employees hired before 1984. FERS generally applies to employees first 

hired after 1984.
Appendix V: UN Allowances and Allowances 

for U.S. Civil Service Staff Serving Overseas 

and Foreign Service Officers

Page 54 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

UN

US Civil Service Employees Serving Overseas and 

Foreign Service Officers

Housing 

Subsidy

UN employees are eligible for a rental subsidy intended to 

provide equity in accommodation expenses among UN 

staff in duty stations where rents vary considerably; and to 

alleviate hardships staff may face if their rent is higher than 

average for reasonable standard accommodations.

For duty stations in Europe and North America, the UN 

determines a reasonable maximum rent level (or ceiling) 

that is used to determine how much an employee should 

pay, taking into account their rent, their income, and 

whether they have dependents. Newly hired staff are 

eligible to receive a subsidy for the portion of their rent that 

exceeds the reasonable maximum. They can receive the 

subsidy for up to 7 years, and it declines over time. In years 

1 through 4, the subsidy is 80 percent, in year 5 the 

subsidy is 60 percent, in year 6 it is 40 percent, and in year 

7 it is 20 percent

For duty stations outside Europe and North America, the 

standard rental subsidy is 80 percent of the rent exceeding 

the threshold, up to a maximum of 40 percent of rent.

U.S. civilian employees are eligible for housing subsidies, 

called quarters allowances, that are designed to reimburse 

employees for substantially all costs of residing in either 

temporary or permanent living quarters. A quarters 

allowance is not granted when government housing is 

provided.

A temporary quarters subsistence allowance is granted to 

an employee for the reasonable cost of temporary quarters, 

meals, and laundry expenses incurred by the employee 

and/or family member at the foreign post upon initial arrival 

or preceding final departure.

A living quarters allowance is granted to an employee for 

the annual cost of suitable, adequate living quarters for the 

employee and his or her family.

An extraordinary quarters allowance is granted to an 

employee who must vacate permanent quarters due to 

renovations, or unhealthy or dangerous conditions.

Cost of 

living 

(exclusive 

of quarters 

cost)

The UN pays a post adjustment to employees to ensure 

equity in purchasing power of staff members across duty 

stations. The post adjustment is a part of the employee’s 

salary and is not considered an allowance. The post 

adjustment is higher for employees with dependents.

The U.S. government grants a post allowance to 

employees officially stationed at a post in a foreign area 

where the cost of living is substantially higher than in 

Washington, D.C. The post allowance is designed to permit 

employees to spend the same portion of their salaries for 

their standard living expenses as they would if they were 

residing in Washington, D.C. The amount paid is a flat rate 

that varies by basic salary, size of family, and post. 

Relocation 

expenses

UN employees are eligible for an assignment grant that is 

intended to provide staff with a reasonable cash amount at 

the beginning of the assignment for the costs incurred as a 

result of appointment or reassignment. The amount of the 

grant varies by duty station and whether the employee has 

dependents. For example, a staff member with two 

dependents assigned to headquarters for a period of 2 

years might earn an assignment grant of $7,200 to 

compensate for 30 days at the beginning of the 

assignment.

The UN also pays removal and shipment costs for 

employees. Employees may ship personal effects only, or 

household goods and personal effects in some cases. The 

UN has established weight limits for this allowance, which 

depend on the employee’s number of dependents.

The U.S. government grants a foreign transfer allowance to 

employees for extraordinary, necessary, and reasonable 

expenses, incurred by an employee transferring to any post 

of assignment in a foreign area, prior to departure. This 

allowance includes a miscellaneous expense portion, a 

wardrobe expense portion, a pre-departure subsistence 

expense portion, and a lease penalty expense portion.

The U.S. government offers a home service transfer 

allowance for extraordinary, necessary, and reasonable 

expenses for employees prior to transferring back to a post 

in the United States. This allowance includes a 

miscellaneous expense portion, a wardrobe expense 

portion, a subsistence expense portion, and a lease penalty 

expense portion.

Appendix V: UN Allowances and Allowances 

for U.S. Civil Service Staff Serving Overseas 

and Foreign Service Officers
Appendix V: UN Allowances and Allowances 

for U.S. Civil Service Staff Serving Overseas 

and Foreign Service Officers

Page 55 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

UN

US Civil Service Employees Serving Overseas and 

Foreign Service Officers

Maintaining 

family at 

separate 

location

For a UN staff member located in a duty station that lacks 

appropriate schools and medical facilities to meet family 

members’ needs, and who is obliged to pay rent in another 

city for their family, the staff member’s rent at the duty 

station and the rent for the family in the capital city can be 

considered one combined rent for the purposes of 

determining the rental subsidy.

The U.S. government offers a separate maintenance 

allowance to assist an employee who is required to 

maintain family members at locations other than his/her 

overseas post of assignment either due to (a) dangerous, 

notably unhealthful, or excessively adverse living 

conditions at the post; (b) because of special needs or 

hardship involving the employee or family member; (c) if 

the family needs to stay temporarily in commercial 

quarters, such as a hotel. 

Education 

allowance

UN employees serving outside their home country are 

eligible for an education grant to cover part of the cost of 

educating children in full-time attendance at an educational 

institution. The amount of the grant is equivalent to 75 

percent of allowable costs, subject to a maximum that 

varies from country to country. Employees are eligible for 

the grant up to the fourth year of their child’s postsecondary 

education, or age 25. For U.N. employees in the United 

States, the maximum education grant in August 2012 was 

$32,255.

At designated locations where educational facilities are 

inadequate, UN also covers up to 100 percent of boarding 

costs, up to a maximum amount, for children at the primary 

or secondary level, in addition to the standard maximum 

amount of education grant. 

The U.S. government provides an allowance to assist an 

employee in meeting the extraordinary and necessary

expenses in providing adequate elementary and secondary 

education for dependent children at an overseas post of 

assignment. The amount of the grant depends on whether 

the child is in a school at post, at a school away from the 

post, or in home study or at a private institution.

Educational 

travel

In addition to the educational allowance, UN employees are 

entitled to travel expenses for their child for one return 

journey from the educational institution to their duty station, 

if the educational institution is outside the country of the 

duty station. At some duty stations, the UN allows an 

additional round-trip journey in a non-home leave year. 

The U.S. government pays the expenses for a child to 

travel to and from a secondary school or post-secondary 

school, once each way annually. The age limitation for 

secondary education travel is 20 (before the 21st birthday), 

and for post-secondary education the age limitation is 22 

(before the 23rd birthday). 

Danger pay 

allowance

The UN provides a special allowance for staff required to 

work under dangerous conditions. The danger pay is 

granted for up to 3 months at a time, subject to ongoing 

review. 

For internationally recruited staff, the allowance is $1,600 

per month. For locally recruited staff, the allowance is 

based on the local salary scale.

The U.S. government provides additional compensation of 

up to 35 percent over basic compensation to employees, 

for service at places in foreign areas where dangerous 

conditions that could threaten the health or well being of an 

employee exist.

Representa

tion 

allowance

No comparable allowance. The U.S. government provides an allowance intended to 

cover expenditures by employees when these expenditures 

are made to help establish and maintain relationships of 

value to the U.S. in foreign countries. The allowance covers 

expenses such as entertainment of a protocol nature; 

purchases of flowers, wreaths, or other tokens made in 

accordance with local custom; or printing, engraving, or 

purchasing of invitations to official functions.

Official 

residence 

expenses

No comparable allowance. The U.S. government provides an allowance to assist 

principal representatives with the unusual expenses that 

they incur in the operation and maintenance of a suitable 

official residence.
Appendix V: UN Allowances and Allowances 

for U.S. Civil Service Staff Serving Overseas 

and Foreign Service Officers

Page 56 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

UN

US Civil Service Employees Serving Overseas and 

Foreign Service Officers

Advance of 

pay

No comparable allowance. The head of an agency may provide for the advance 

payment of up to 3 months pay to or for the account of an 

employee proceeding to or arriving at a post of assignment 

in the foreign area. Advance of pay may also be paid for 

certain medical emergencies.

Rest and 

recuperatio

n travel

No comparable allowance. The United States may grant Foreign Service employees 

and their eligible family members rest and recuperation 

travel to the United States, its territories, or other locations 

abroad.

Children’s 

allowance

The UN provides eligible staff members an annual 

children’s allowance of $2,929 per child under age 18 or 

under 21 if a full-time student). Staff without a dependent 

spouse do not receive a children’s allowance for their first

dependent child.

No comparable allowance.

Mobility 

allowance 

To encourage movement from one duty station to another,

the UN provides an annual mobility allowance to staff on an 

assignment of 1 year or more who have had 5 consecutive 

years of service in the UN system. The amount of this 

allowance varies by the employee’s number of 

assignments, duty station, and whether the employee has 

dependents. As of August 2012, this allowance ranged 

from $1,970 to $16,490.

No comparable allowance.

Hardship 

allowance

The UN provides an annual hardship allowance to staff on 

assignment in duty stations where living and working 

conditions are difficult. The hardship allowance varies by 

position level and dependency status. The allowance varies 

depending on the employee’s duty station, salary level, and 

whether the employee has dependents. As of August 2012, 

the allowance ranged from $4,360 to $22,680.

The U.S. government provides a post hardship differential, 

which is additional compensation of 25, 30, or 35 percent of 

salary to employees for service at places in foreign areas 

where conditions of environment differ substantially from 

conditions of environment in the continental United States 

and warrant additional compensation as a recruitment and 

retention incentive. A hardship differential is established for 

locations where the living conditions are extraordinarily 

difficult, involve excessive physical hardship, or are notably 

unhealthy. A U.S. government agency may also grant a 

difficult-to-staff incentive differential to employees assigned 

to a hardship post upon a determination that additional pay 

is warranted to recruit and retain employees at that post.

The allowance is an additional 15 percent of salary.

Travel 

expenses

The UN pays travel expenses for employees when they are 

initially appointed, when they change their duty station, 

when they separate from service, when they travel on 

official business, when they travel for home leave, and 

when they travel to visit family members. The UN pays 

travel expenses for employee dependents on the initial 

appointment, on separation from service, and on education 

grant travel and home leave. Employees also receive a 

daily allowance while on travel.

The State Department pays travel and related expenses for 

members of the Foreign Service and their families under a 

number of circumstances, including when they are 

proceeding to and returning from assigned posts of duty; 

for authorized or required home leave; for family members 

to accompany, precede, or follow a foreign service member

to a place of temporary duty; for representation travel; 

medical travel; rest and recuperation travel; evacuation 

travel; or other travel as authorized.a
Appendix V: UN Allowances and Allowances 

for U.S. Civil Service Staff Serving Overseas 

and Foreign Service Officers

Page 57 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

UN

US Civil Service Employees Serving Overseas and 

Foreign Service Officers

Home leave The UN offers employees who are posted outside their 

home country paid travel to their home country every 2 

years. This includes travel for the employee and the 

employee’s dependents. No additional annual leave is 

granted for this purpose, but reasonable time off is given to 

cover the duration of travel between the duty station and 

the place of home leave. Home leave may be granted 

every 12 months at some duty stations.

The Foreign Service Act of 1980 requires home leave for 

all employees following completion of 3 years continuous 

service abroad. In some cases, home leave must be taken 

after 12 months of service. The purpose of home leave is to 

ensure that employees who live abroad for an extended 

period undergo reorientation and re-exposure in the United 

States on a regular basis; it is not considered an employee 

benefit.a

Family visit 

travel

The UN may pay for the travel of an employee to visit a 

family member if none of the employee’s eligible family 

members have travelled to the duty station at the 

organization’s expense during the preceding 12 months. 

Employees may take family visit travel every other year, 

provided it takes place in the non-home leave year.

Foreign service employees assigned to some hardship 

posts receive family visit travel. This travel permits a 

member to visit family who would reside at post with the 

member if the post were not within a hostile area at which 

family members cannot reside. In addition, the U.S. 

government offers emergency visitation travel, which pays 

for the employee to travel from their post to the United 

States or to other locations in case of a family emergency.a

Transportati

on of an 

automobile

The UN pays part of the cost of transporting an employee’s 

privately owned automobile to some duty stations outside 

of Europe and the United States.

No comparable allowance.

Source: GAO analysis of UN and Office of Personnel Management data.

Note:

a

The information for this allowance is relevant to Foreign Service Officers only.
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of State

Page 58 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Appendix VI: Comments from the 

Department of State

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix.
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of State

Page 59 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

See comment 1.
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of State

Page 60 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

See comment 2.
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department 

of State

Page 61 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

The following are GAO’s comments on the State Department’s letter 

dated May 13 2013.

1. As we note in the report, member states and the General Assembly 

are the ultimate users of this information, and are best suited to select 

the approach that is the most appropriate for their needs, which is why 

we do not specifically endorse any of the alternatives. The report is 

intended to provide information on how ICSC calculates the margin 

between UN and U.S. civil service salaries. Member states may be 

able to use the information in this report as they deliberate on whether 

to approve ICSC’s recommendations to change UN salaries each 

year. Regarding the margin, the General Assembly made the 

decision that average UN net salaries should fall within a 110 to 120 

percent of average U.S. civil service net salaries. It is outside of the 

scope of our review to examine the justification for the General 

Assembly’s decision.

2. We plan to provide more in-depth information about the value of UN 

and U.S. civil service employee benefits and allowances in a 

forthcoming report.

GAO Comments
Appendix VII: Comments from the United 

Nations

Page 62 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Appendix VII: Comments from the United 

Nations 

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear at 

the end of this appendix.
Appendix VII: Comments from the United 

Nations

Page 63 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

See comment 1.

See comment 2.

See comment 1.
Appendix VII: Comments from the United 

Nations

Page 64 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

See comment 5.

See comment 4.

See comment 3.
Appendix VII: Comments from the United 

Nations

Page 65 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

The following are GAO’s comments on ICSC’s letter dated May 13, 2013.

1. While ICSC notes that it faces challenges in reporting on its highly 

complex and technical process for calculating the margin between UN 

and U.S. salaries, nevertheless, ICSC can, though supplementary 

reports and oral briefings, provide more clarity on this process to the 

General Assembly. As we reported, representatives from several 

member states said that they did not understand the margin 

calculation process. Further, as ICSC points out in their letter, there is 

no single document that provides all the relevant information about 

the margin calculation. As we described in Appendix I of our report, 

we reviewed numerous documents to try to gain a clear 

understanding of the margin calculation process. We also 

supplemented the data ICSC provided with published information we 

obtained independently and some additional data from the UN Chief 

Executives’ Board in order to replicate some parts of their process. 

However, we were not able to fully describe ICSC’s margin calculation 

until we met several times with ICSC officials to clarify various aspects 

of the process. We believe that more clarity is needed about the 

margin calculation process and its underlying assumptions to better 

inform member states, so that they can effectively oversee ICSC’s 

process for setting and adjusting salaries and ensure that its work is in 

line with the General Assembly resolution. 

2. In our report, we noted the ICSC utilizes cost-of-living measures for 

two different purposes: when it sets the post adjustment for each duty 

station, and when it compares UN salaries in New York to U.S. civil 

service salaries in Washington D.C. We do not question the ICSC’s 

use of a cost-of-living measure to set the post adjustment to equalize 

the purchasing power of UN Secretariat salaries. However, the UN’s 

remuneration system is based on the Noblemaire Principle, and in 

practice the UN bases its salaries on the U.S. civil service; thus it is 

reasonable to note that the United States uses a cost-of-labor factor in 

setting its locality pay adjustments when comparing New York and 

Washington, D.C. Using this measure, we calculated a margin of 

126.7, which is outside the margin range of 110 to 120 percent.

3. This issue is outside the scope of our review. ICSC officials we met 

with noted that their process generally is based on the U.S. General 

Schedule and that they request information on other pay scales. We 

have added a footnote to the report to reflect ICSC’s comment.

4. Appendix V of the report discusses allowances such as difficult-tostaff incentives and housing supplements offered under the 

GAO Comments
Appendix VII: Comments from the United 

Nations

Page 66 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Department of State’s Standardized Regulations. We plan to provide 

more in-depth information about other allowances, such as student 

loan reimbursement, in a forthcoming report.

5. We agree that ICSC does not have to comply with U.S. federal 

internal control standards, however, we cite our own standards for 

internal control as a best practice and note that key information should 

be recorded and communicated to management and others within the 

entity who need it, and in a form and within a time frame that enables 

them to carry out their internal control and other responsibilities.

Without such information, member states cannot effectively evaluate 

whether ICSC’s process best satisfies the General Assembly 

resolution. Our recommendation is that State and the U.S. Mission to 

the UN should work with other member states to make sure that they 

can get the information they need for effective oversight of ICSC’s 

process.
Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 67 GAO-13-526 UN Compensation

Thomas Melito, (202) 512-9601 or melitot@gao.gov

In addition to the staff named above, Valérie Nowak (Assistant Director), 

Diana Blumenfeld, Debbie Chung, David Dayton, Leah DeWolf, Mark 

Dowling, Etana Finkler, Joy Labez, Erin McLaughlin, Rhiannon Patterson, 

Steven Putansu, Jeremy Sebest and Roberta G. Steinman made 

significant contributions to this report.

Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(320935)
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