The General Scale Pay Raise for 2021 is set to be 1% unless Congress can change it- the Military’s pay is set to increase 3% next year
As things stand now, in the dog days of July, salaries for military servicemen are authorized to increase by 3% in 2021 thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act. As for the Federal Government’s civilian workforce, unless Congress can intervene, their pay scale is believed to be on track for a 1% uptick. This is based on the Trump Administration’s 2021 proposed budget, which included the one percent raise for Feds and was published in February before states started shutting down due to the coronavirus crisis. Other than the fact that the country’s current president exhibits famously volatile behavior, therefore adding uncertainty to a lot of factors associated with the Federal Government, there are no serious indicators that the President will reverse the 1% raise mentioned in the executive branch’s budget.
In response to the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations’ draft of the 2021 budget not including a raise for federal employees, Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia and nine other congressmen wrote a letter to House appropriators. The correspondence argues there is precedence for parity with the military’s pay increases and urges the upcoming fiscal year’s budget to include a 3.5% pay raise for the government’s civilian workforce. The number echoes the 3.5% raise for feds that was in a recent bill introduced in Congress in February- that potential law never got traction, though. Similarly, in 2019, a bill was passed by the House that included a 3.6% pay increase for feds, but it never escaped the Senate. The 2020 salary increase still ended up being 2.6% all around and 3.1% in designated localities. The year before that was much more of a mess regarding Feds getting a raise. A government shutdown, a traffic jam in Congress and presidential threats to freeze federal pay with an executive order- all this culminated in a storm of confusion for Feds, 800,000 of which were furloughed. When the work stoppage at last ceased, 6 weeks into the year, a 1.9% raise was approved by Congress for 2019.
Until Next Time,
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2021 Federal Pay Raise