Biden maintains plan for 5.2% pay increase for federal employees
- Federal employees will see a pay bump going into next year
- The 5.2% pay increase will be put into place in January
- Congress could pass its own pay increase but has yet to do so
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 29: The U.S. Treasury Building as seen from the Bank of America offices where Politico is holding the inaugural ‘Lessons from Leaders’ program September 29, 2014 in Washington, DC. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, talked about how his foundation’s work to erradicate polio in Nigeria has been helpful in starting to combat the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, which is the largest outbreak ever recorded. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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(NewsNation) — Building on a plan he initially made as part of his fiscal 2024 budget request, President Biden reaffirmed his intention to put into place a federal pay raise next year.
The plan, which will be effective on Jan. 1, will deliver an average 5.2% raise to most of the civilian federal workforce. That will be divided between a 4.7% raise that will be given across the board and a 0.5% locality pay raise.
Biden stated his intent to enact the pay raise in a letter to Congress sent last week.
“We must attract, recruit, and retain a skilled workforce with fair compensation in order to keep our government running, deliver services, and meet our nation’s challenges today and tomorrow,” Biden said in the letter.
Congress has the power to put into place an alternative pay raise via legislation, but there is currently no indication that it will do so before the end of the year.
“Federal employees would get their largest pay raise in 43 years under President Biden’s announcement today that officially proposes to increase salaries by an average of 5.2%, a significant endorsement of federal employees and the valuable work they do,” Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said. “Frontline federal employees earn 24.09% less than people in similar private sector jobs, according to the Federal Salary Council, so Biden’s plan would help chip away at that deficit and make federal employment more competitive.”