(a) Each wage area shall consist of one or more survey areas along with nonsurvey areas, if any.

(1) Survey area: A survey area is composed of the counties, parishes, cities, or townships in which survey data are collected. Except in very unusual circumstances, a wage area that includes a Metropolitan Statistical Area shall have the Metropolitan Statistical Area as the survey area or part of the survey area.

(2) Nonsurvey area: Nonsurvey counties, parishes, cities, or townships may be combined with the survey area(s) to form the wage area through consideration of the criteria in paragraph (d)(1) of this section.

(b) Wage areas shall include wherever possible a recognized economic community such as a Metropolitan Statistical Area or a political unit such as a county. Two or more economic communities or political units, or both, may be combined to constitute a single wage area; however, except in unusual circumstances and as an exception to the criteria, an individually defined Metropolitan Statistical Area or county shall not be subdivided for the purpose of defining a wage area.

(c) Except as provided in paragraph (a) of this section, wage areas shall be established when:

(1) There is a minimum of 100 wage employees of one agency subject to the regular schedule and the agency involved indicates that its local installation has the capacity to do the survey; and

(2) There is, within a reasonable commuting distance of the concentration of Federal employment;

(i) A minimum of either 20 establishments within survey specifications having at least 50 employees each; or 10 establishments having at least 50 employees each, with a combined total of 1,500 employees; and

(ii) The total private enterprise employment in the industries surveyed in the survey area is at least twice the Federal wage employment in the survey area.

(d)

(1) Adjacent economic communities or political units meeting the separate wage area criteria in paragraphs (b) and (c) of this section may be combined through consideration of:

(i) Distance, transportation facilities, and geographic features;

(ii) Commuting patterns; and

(iii) Similarities in overall population, employment, and the kinds and sizes of private industrial establishments.

(2) Generally, the criteria listed in paragraph (d)(1) of this section are considered in the order listed.

(3) When two wage areas are combined, the survey area of either or both may be used, depending on the concentrations of Federal and private employment and locations of establishments, the proximity of the survey areas to each other, and the extent of economic similarites or differences as indicated by relative levels of wage rates in each of the potential survey areas.

(e) Appropriated fund wage and survey area definitions are set out as appendix C to this subpart and are incorporated in and made part of this section.

(f) A single contiguous military installation defined as a Joint Base that would otherwise overlap two separate wage areas shall be included in only a single wage area. The wage area of such a Joint Base shall be defined to be the wage area with the most favorable payline based on an analysis of the simple average of the 15 nonsupervisory second step rates on each one of the regular wage schedules applicable in the otherwise overlapped wage areas.

[55 FR 46142, Nov. 1, 1990, as amended at 57 FR 29783, July 7, 1992; 81 FR 86249, Nov. 30, 2016]