Senate appropriators endorse 2% pay raise for feds next year

Lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Committee unveiled and unanimously advanced spending legislation Thursday effectively endorsing President Biden’s planned 2% average pay increase for federal workers in January, to the chagrin of federal employee groups and advocates.

The committee moved four of the 12 fiscal 2025 appropriations bills Thursday, including the Energy and Water Development; Defense; Labor, Health and Human Services; and Financial Services and General Government Appropriations acts. That last bill is traditionally the avenue by which lawmakers seek to override a president’s alternative pay plan, and the committee’s draft is silent on most federal workers’ compensation rates, effectively endorsing the White House’s plan.

In March, Biden included a proposed 2.0% average pay increase for civilian federal workers as part of his fiscal 2025 budget plan. That turned heads among federal employee groups and some congressional Democrats; not only did it represent a significant decrease from the president’s pay raise plans in prior years, it also broke with the longstanding Democratic priority of maintaining pay parity in government, as Biden simultaneously pitched a 4.5% raise for military service members.

Unions and some Democrats have urged Congress to adopt a more generous pay increase for civilians next year, throwing their support behind the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates Act, introduced by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., which would issue a 7.4% average raise to the federal workforce next year.

The White House has yet to stipulate what portion of the raise figure would go toward average increases to locality pay. If the Biden administration follows tradition, where 0.5% of the overall increase is dedicated to locality pay boosts, federal workers would receive a 1.5% across the board increase in basic pay.

With the GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee’s version of the Financial Services and General Government spending package, advanced by the panel last month on a party-line vote, similarly endorsing the White House proposal, it is unlikely federal employees will see a raise larger than 2% next year.