Federal Government Policy and Business

Q&A for federal workers: Pay parity

The Washington Post: Question: What is this “pay parity” the federal employee unions are asking for?

Answer: It’s the concept that federal employees should receive the same annual raise as military personnel. That was the common, although informal, practice for about two decades until it ended about 10 years ago. Since then it has been hit or miss.

Equalizing the raises usually helps federal employees by boosting their raise to the higher amount Congress and the White House typically favor for the military. That happened just last year. It looked as if federal employees were going to get 1.6 percent in January 2017, but President Barack Obama increased it to 2.1 percent after Congress enacted that amount for the military late in the year. When Congress does not enact a federal raise, the president can set one by default.

Congress, similarly, has not set a federal employee raise for January 2018; this time the default raise would be 1.9 percent. However, after Congress recently passed a defense budget providing a 2.4 percent raise for military personnel, some federal employee organizations asked for a boost to that level in the name of pay parity. That’s up to President Trump unless Congress suddenly decides to set a figure in law.

Read article