Pay Raise Takes Step, But Still No Guarantee

The budget agreement keeps agencies operating at about current levels through January 15, giving time for the new budget talks, which are to end by December 13. While the measure does not set a raise, it effectively would allow a 1 percent pay raise to take effect in January. President Obama has told Congress he will carry out a raise of that size by default if no specific language on a raise is enacted into law by the end of the year. Unlike in past years, the House has not endorsed a continued salary rate freeze, and the appropriations bills that were drafted left room for a raise—although agencies would have to absorb the cost from other accounts. The budget deal similarly provides no separate appropriation for a raise but it does create a default position on Capitol Hill that a raise will be paid. It further denies a raise for members of Congress while not barring a raise for political appointees; that would raise the pay caps applying to the SES, certain other high-level pay schedules and the top GS levels. However, the raise remains subject to being changed by a law to the contrary enacted before year’s end; earlier this year a 0.5 percent raise that similarly was scheduled to happen in the absence of language blocking it was canceled just before it was to happen.