Pay & Benefits

When to Leave to Get Paid the Most for Your Leave

The pros and cons of working all the way to the end of the federal leave year.

Pay & Benefits

Why Are Federal Courts Denying Hazardous Duty Pay For Feds Forced To Take Risks With COVID?

“On its face, in this case, it looks like one of those situations where hazard pay is denied for narrow, technical reasons,” says one labor historian.

Pay & Benefits

Feds Driven Away By Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Could Return or Get Payouts, Under a New Bill

Few if any were ever fired, but the bill would also apply to those who left voluntarily after Biden demanded vaccination against COVID-19.

Pay & Benefits

Federal Prisons Employees Aren’t Entitled to COVID Hazard Pay, Appeals Judges Rule

In a 10-2 decision, the appeals court said OPM regulations around hazardous duty pay only address the handling of “virulent biologicals” in a laboratory setting, not “ambient” exposure to infected individuals.

Pay & Benefits

VA Docs Are One Step Closer to Earning More than $400K Annually

A Senate committee advanced a sweeping compensation overhaul for VA health care workers that would create a more market-based pay system.

Pay & Benefits

What Not To Do With Your TSP Account

Be careful about borrowing from your retirement investments. 

Pay & Benefits

Paid Family Leave: A Benefit Helpful to Just About Everyone—So Why So Slow In Coming?

It’s only in the last few years that feds got 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Now, a pending bill aims to cover caregiving in case of illness.

Pay & Benefits

A Bill to Fix a Customs and Border Protection Retirement Snafu Is Revived in the Senate

More than 1,000 Customs and Border Protection officers were mistakenly promised enhanced retirement benefits, only to have them taken away once the agency realized its error.

Pay & Benefits

Lawmakers Try Again to Standardize Cost of Living Raises for Federal Retirees

Federal employee groups have long decried the fact that retirees enrolled in the Federal Employees Retirement System receive lower annual annuity adjustments than their peers.

Pay & Benefits

A Bipartisan Proposal to Give Feds 12 Weeks of Paid Family Leave Is Back

The bill would grant federal workers additional paid leave to deal with chronic health issues, a sick family member or in connection with a family member on active military duty.

Pay & Benefits

Don’t Overlook This Unloved Fund When Investing in the TSP

TSP participants can consider it another potential way to diversify a growth-oriented strategy.

Pay & Benefits

A Senator Is Once Again Trying to Keep TSP Investments Out of China

The TSP Fiduciary Security Act would require the agency that administers the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program to consider national security issues as part of its decision-making process.

Pay & Benefits

Waiting For That First Retirement Check

A primer on processing, payments and patience for those looking forward to getting their benefits. 

Pay & Benefits

Biden Instructs Agencies to Expand Some Forms of Paid, Unpaid Leave for Feds

A memo to agency heads urges them to support federal workers who need to take paid or unpaid leave for a family matter or to escape from domestic violence and other dangerous situations.

Pay & Benefits

All TSP Portfolios Started Strong in 2023

Every fund in the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program posted gains in January.

Pay & Benefits

Here’s Why Employees Stick With A (Federal) Job, and More

Federal employees—and those who recruit them—often laud the excellent benefits that come with working for the government, among other things.

Pay & Benefits

Congressional Democrats Propose an 8.7% Pay Raise for Feds in 2024

The annually introduced bill would provide a 4.7% across-the-board increase in basic pay and an average 4% increase to locality pay.