A group of lawmakers asked President Biden to more than double the 2025 pay raise for federal employees.
They sent a letter asking the president to change the 2025 federal pay raise from the currently planned 2% to 4.5%. Why?
The answer is pay parity.
The lawmakers said in their letter that the disparity between the pay raise being given to the military and federal employees in 2025 is unfair because it “upends historical bipartisan support for pay parity across the federal workforce.” That is because the military will be getting a 4.5% pay raise next year.
Consequently, they asked the president to issue a new alternative pay plan letter to change the pay raise for federal employees to 4.5%.
A copy of the letter is included at the end of this article.
What is Pay Parity?
Pay parity is the idea that federal employees should receive the same annual pay raise as military personnel receive.
There is no requirement that pay parity be implemented in a given year. The argument is frequently raised by federal employee unions when a higher raise for military personnel is proposed. It is also raised by legislators, particularly from the Washington, DC metropolitan area, who are seeking a higher raise for many of their constituents that work for the federal government.
If you want to see how pay parity between the military and federal workforce typically plays out, I have a table in an article I wrote earlier this year on pay parity that lists the average pay raises for both groups for the last 20 years.
What Happens If Biden Issues a New Pay Raise?
If the president were to issue a new alternative pay plan letter as the lawmakers have requested, that would almost certainly mean that the new pay raise for 2025 would be put in place before the end of the year. With so few days left in the year, it is doubtful the current Congress would override this change with legislation.
However, Congress could presumably retroactively change the pay raise in this scenario next year. While very unusual, this has happened.
In 2019, Congress passed legislation to retroactively give federal employees a 1.9% pay raise to override a pay freeze that then President Trump had proposed. In that instance, there had just been a government shutdown because no spending bill had been passed by Congress, and the Senate and House had proposed different pay raises in their spending bills. Once a spending bill was passed after the start of 2019, the pay raise was included to retroactively override the pay freeze.
It was an unusual situation to be sure, but it goes to show that politics in Washington can play out in unexpected ways sometimes.
Letter Seeking Pay Parity for 2025 Federal Pay Raise
December 11, 2024
Dear President Biden:
We write concerned about the lack of parity between the proposed military and civilian pay raises in your Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request (PBR). Although you submitted an alternative pay plan in August, it continued to support a differential pay increase: 4.5% for military employees and 2% for civilian employees. This deviation between military and civilian employee pay increases upends historical bipartisan support for pay parity across the federal workforce. Although we understand this decision was made under the constraints put in place by the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps, we believe it is imperative you revise your budget to align military and civilian employee pay raises. Specifically, we request you issue a revised alternative pay plan seeking a 4.5% pay increase for the entire federal workforce, including military and civilian employees alike.
Our nation’s servicemembers and civilian employees both work tirelessly to keep us safe and run the critical operations of the government. Of the federal workforce, more than 2.2 million civilian employees work to ensure resources and services are provided to countless communities across America. By aligning military and civilian pay raises for 2025, you will recognize the efforts of the entire federal workforce.
Our request is grounded in longstanding tradition and precedent. For example, on December 8, 2016, President Barack Obama submitted an alternative federal pay plan to Congress that increased the federal civilian pay raise to the same level as military employees. We implore you to move swiftly to submit a revised alternative pay plan that supports our entire federal workforce.
Thank you for your attention to this important issue. We believe this request is fair and timely. We hope you are able to continue to uphold the longstanding bipartisan tenet of federal pay parity.
Sincerely,
Senators
Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), John Fetterman (D-PA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Alex Padilla (D-CA)
Representatives
Steny Hoyer (D-MD-05), Bobby Scott (D-VA-03), Gerry Connolly (D-VA-11), Don Beyer (D-VA-08), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07), Jennifer Wexton (D-VA-10), Jennifer McClellan (D-VA-07), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD-02), Glenn Ivey (D-MD-04), John Sarbanes (D-MD-03), Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08), Donald Norcross (D-NJ-01), Mark Pocan (D-WI-02), Kweisi Mfume (D-MD-07), and David Trone (D-MD-06)
