WASHINGTON — Federal employees’ pay will be frozen at 2018 levels for all of next year following a White House executive order issued Friday.
The Office of Personnel Management released pay tables Friday night that show there will be no raises for civilian federal employees in 2019.
The freeze became official as federal employees head into their second week of a partial government shutdown.
Over the summer, President Donald Trump said it was his intention to limit the “long-term fixed costs” of “across-the-board pay increases” as part of a plan to better manage the government’s budget.
The OPM pay tables show that rates will be frozen at 2018 levels starting in January 2019.
It is possible that Congress could still step in to pass a pay raise as part of a bill that will eventually reopen the government, according to Federal News Network.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., called the president’s executive order “pouring salt on the wounds of federal employees” in a Twitter post late Friday night. He said Congress should reopen the government and “make federal employees whole.”
Today, the President poured salt on the wounds of federal employees by instituting a pay freeze for 2019 in the middle of the Trump Shutdown. Congress must reopen the federal government, make federal employees whole, and restore the dignity of federal service.
— Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) December 29, 2018
The pay freeze will not affect those in the military. They will receive a 2.6 percent pay increase in 2019.
“It is shocking that federal employees are taking yet another financial hit,” Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in a statement Friday night. “As if missed paychecks and working without pay [during the partial shutdown] were not enough, now they have been told that they don’t even deserve a modest pay increase.”
Read more on the civilian federal pay freeze from WTOP’s sister news organization, Federal News Network.
