President Biden is set to propose the largest salary increase for federal employees and military service members in two decades.
The 4.6 percent increase will be included in the budget he will propose next month and would take effect next January, according to The Washington Post.
A 4.6 percent raise would be the largest since 2002, when the workforce received the same increase. The raise two years earlier, in 2000, averaged 4.8 percent, the largest since 1981.
The salary proposal, first reported by Federal News Network, received an early endorsement from congressional Democrats and federal employee unions. It represents the second year that Biden has relied on guidance from a federal pay law that calls for tying raises to a Labor Department index of private-sector wage growth called the Employment Cost Index, in this case growth from October 2020 through September 2021.
The formula sometimes has been followed, and sometimes not, in White House budget plans under both parties. President Donald Trump twice proposed freezing salary rates and in two other years came in under the recommendation of the pay index, although federal employees ultimately received raises each year during his term, ranging from an across-the-board 1 percent to 3.1 percent. (WaPo)
Shalanda Young, the nominee to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the budget will go to Congress after the president's State of the Union Address on March 1.
Federal spending was $4.4T in 2019, $6.6T in 2020, $6.8T in 2021. Inflation in Jan 22 was 7.5 percent, highest since 1982. How does this movie end? https://t.co/tp5BNZVdzb
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) February 10, 2022