Pay Order Is a Possibility

Under federal pay law, the President has an annual opportunity, with an August 31 deadline, to make a federal pay raise recommendation that could become the default raise for the following January if Congress does not enact a specific figure. That would be an opportunity for President Obama to once again back the 2 percent January 2010 raise he recommended earlier this year in both a preliminary budget proposal and in the formal proposal. In some years a President makes such an “alternative” raise recommendation and in some years he doesn’t; even when he does, the action typically becomes a moot point later because Congress generally enacts a raise figure, and once that bill is signed into law that figure overrides any earlier action. Typically the raise is specified in the financial services-general government appropriations bill; the House-passed version of that bill accepts the 2 percent recommendation while the pending Senate version would set the raise at 2.9 percent. There is only an outside chance for 3.4 percent in the name of pay parity with uniformed military personnel.