The annual general government spending bill advancing in the House is silent regarding a January 2019 federal employee raise, effectively backing President Trump’s recommendation for no increase.
The measure as drafted by an Appropriations subcommittee is just the first of many steps in a process that typically doesn’t end until near year’s end. Congress could yet endorse a raise of some amount—employee organizations and some Democrats propose 3 percent—but the silence does continue a strategy Congress has followed in recent years of allowing the White House’s recommendation on a raise to take effect by default.
In recent years that has produced raises averaging around 1-2 percent, but the same mechanics of pay law that applied to granting those raises would apply equally to a freeze. If Congress takes no final action on a raise by the end of August—and chances are strong that it won’t—the next step would be for Trump to send a notice to Congress of his intent to set an “alternative” raise figure if no number is enacted by year’s end (alternative to the substantial raise that otherwise would take effect under that law). In those messages, Presidents consistently have repeated their initial raise recommendations.
The measure’s only reference to a raise is to repeat language from the past essentially stating that if there is a GS raise, wage grade employees in the area would receive equal amounts locally.
Military personnel are in line to receive the 2.6 percent raise the White House recommended for them; both the House and Senate versions of the defense budget advancing in Congress would provide that amount.
The appropriations bill meanwhile makes no mention of a $1 billion performance and incentive fund that the White House recommended as part of a tradeoff for a salary rate freeze. The administration has not detailed how that fund would be used, specifics that would be needed for Congress to write such a fund into law.
