Budget Measure Calls for Pay Parity

The House Budget Committee has approved a spending blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year that endorses giving federal employee and uniformed military equal raises in January 2009. President Bush had recommended 3.4 percent for the military but only 2.9 percent on average for general schedule federal employees. The House measure does not include a pay figure, however. The Senate counterpart version is silent on pay parity and the federal employee raise but recommends a 3.4 percent military raise. Employee organizations and advocates for military personnel are working to boost the raise to 3.9 percent for both groups. That would be in line with another pattern that has been followed in most recent years of setting the raise for both groups at a half-percentage point above an employment cost index measure.