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Congressional Democrats on Thursday reintroduced two bills aimed at boosting federal workers and retirees’ pay, though the chance of their passage under the GOP’s control of government is slim.
First, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, introduced the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates Act, an annually introduced measure that seeks to set the table for the coming year’s federal pay raise debate. This year, the measure calls for a 4.3% average pay raise for federal workers, split between a 3.3% across-the-board increase in basic pay and a 1% average boost to locality pay.
“Whether it’s inspecting our food, conducting medical research, or caring for veterans, federal workers play an important role in our daily lives and deserve pay that reflects that,” Schatz said in a statement. “Our bill boosts wages to keep public service jobs competitive with those in the private sector and maintain a strong and talented federal workforce.”
A raise of 4.3% next January would mark an increase from the 2.0% average raise federal workers received this month but would fall short of President Biden’s previous annual pay raises—4.6% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024. Last year, federal employees earned 24.72% less on average than their private sector counterparts, a slight improvement following two straight years of the pay gap widening. During Trump’s first term, he frequently proposed freezing the federal workforce’s pay in initial budget requests, but congressional pushback led to raises of between 1% and 2.6%.
“The federal workforce is our country’s greatest asset,” Connolly said in a statement. “Even after serving dutifully through a global pandemic and enduring the Trump administration’s cruel personal attacks, unsafe work environments, pay freezes, government shutdowns, sequestration cuts, furloughs and mindless across-the-board hiring freezes, they come to work every day in service to the American people. As we prepare for another Trump administration and its impact on our civil servants, it is only right that they be compensated fairly.”
In a statement, National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald quickly endorsed the bill.
“Federal employees swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and perform the day-to-day work of our federal agencies, and they deserve the pay increase outlined in the FAIR Act,” she said. “[We] have union members who know full well they could make more money in the private sector but they instead prefer to put their talents to work for the public good. They deserve fair compensation and to be treated with dignity and respect.”
Connolly also announced Thursday that he has reintroduced legislation aimed at standardizing the annual cost-of-living adjustments for federal retirees’ defined benefit annuity payments. The Equal COLA Act would stipulate that enrollees in both the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System receive the same cost-of-living increase, correcting what federal employee groups argue unfairly deflate retirees’ incomes, particularly during periods of high inflation.
Currently, the CSRS calculates cost of living adjustments based on the annual change in the third quarter consumer price index for workers, while FERS COLAs are based on an extrapolation of that figure: if the CSRS sees an increase of under 2%, FERS retirees will receive the full increase. But if the adjustment is between 2% and 3%, FERS enrollees would only receive a 2%. Increase. And if the CSRS adjustment is at least 3%, FERS retirees would receive that increase, minus 1 percentage point.
“Federal retirees served our country with patriotism and honor, regardless of which retirement system they fall under,” Connolly said. “The economic conditions that necessitate cost-of-living adjustments affect retirees in the same way, whether they are on CSRS or FERS. It is high time we recognized that reality. The Equal COLA Act will rectify the unfair two-tiered process we have in place now and will bring parity to a federal retirement system that has unjustly penalized certain retirees for too long.”
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