President Joseph Biden has formally announced his intention to raise the pay of civilian federal employees under the General Schedule (GS) beginning on January 1, 2023. In a letter to congressional leadership, the President outlined an alternative pay plan that would institute an average pay increase of 4.6 percent for civil servants in the coming year.
Assuming Congress does not enact a different pay arrangement for 2023, most federal employees will receive a 4.1 percent base pay increase in 2023 under the President’s plan. Moreover, the plan would increase locality pay on average by 0.5 percent.
As a tacit endorsem*nt of the Biden Administration’s raise proposal earlier this year, the House’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget made no reference to a federal pay raise. Meanwhile, the Senate explicitly approved Biden’s 4.6 percent pay raise in its draft financial services and general government spending bill for FY 2023.
The President’s letter of intent is a required step in the procedure for the pay raise for federal employees in any given year unless there is an intent to implement the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA) of 1990 (P.L. 101–509). In accordance with the FEPCA, the federal government should compare GS pay to rates to the private sector for comparable work.
In contrast, the pay raise plan falls short of a counterproposal in the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act (H.R. 6398) Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced in both chambers of Congress, which would have increased civilian federal pay by 5.1 percent on average.
The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) indicated that the raise would narrow the salary gap between the public and private sectors and serve to enhance the federal government’s ability to retain highly qualified and effective employees.
“As Americans face unprecedented price increases for food, fuel, housing and other staples, this pay raise demonstrates an understanding of the value of these hard-working civil servants and the jobs they do, as well as displays the administration’s commitment to recruitment and retention of talented federal employees,” stated NARFE National President Ken Thomas.
Yet, according to the latest report from the Federal Salary Council, federal employees are paid 22.47 percent less than their private sector counterparts. This new pay gap calculation coupled with the latest inflation statistics is cause for concern for the Professional Managers Association (PMA), which represents professional managers, management officials, and non-bargaining unit employees across the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including criminal investigators.
“A pay raise is not merely a pat on the back for doing a good job. Raises also recognize increases in costs that turn previously appropriate salaries into under compensation. As inflation hits nearly 9 percent, over half of all Americans who received raises last year had those raises canceled out by inflation. We cannot pretend a 4.6 percent pay raise keeps up with inflation and we cannot pretend it is enough to make the federal government a model employer for the nation,” stated PMA Executive Director Chad Hooper. “If federal employees need to choose between serving their nation and putting food on the table, they will pick the latter. Employees will leave government for lucrative jobs in the private sector. Indeed, they already are. We should not be forcing employees to make this choice.”
