United States President Joe Biden has announced plans to give all Federal civilian employees an average 2.7 per cent pay raise, consistent with the increases he proposed in his 2022 Budget.
“I have determined that for 2022, the across-the-board base pay increase will be 2.2 per cent and locality pay increases will average 0.5 per cent,” Mr Biden wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders.
He said the adjustments would take effect in January next year.
The rise is to apply to some 2.1 million Government employees, though not to the more than 600,000 employees of the US Postal Service, whose increases are set through collective bargaining.
Cost-of-living increases for Federal retirees also are determined separately, reflecting the same inflation measure used for Social Security benefits.
However, Mr Biden’s pay increases are not set in stone.
If Congress enacts different rates of pay increases for 2022, those numbers would take precedent over the President’s.
However, the Democratic-controlled Congress is unlikely to push for rates lower than Mr Biden’s.
Several Federal employee unions had been calling for a 3.2 per cent increase, one of those, the National Treasury Employees Union, described Mr Biden’s proposed rises as “a vast improvement over the previous Administration’s attempts to freeze Federal pay”.
“However, Federal employee pay increases have lagged for years and there is still a very real gap between Federal pay and comparable positions in the private sector,” the union said.
Former President, Donald Trump made several attempts to freeze Federal salary rates but was overruled by Congress.
Washington, 30 August 2021
