Skip to main content

President Obama alerts Congress to plan to raise federal pay in 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jessica Klement
August 31, 2015 jklement@narfe.org
  703-838-7760

NARFE Welcomes Federal Pay Raise, Pushes for Competitive Pay Rates

Alexandria, VA – President Obama sent a letter to Congress August 28, proposing his alternative pay plan for the 2016 calendar year. The plan proposes a 1.0 percent increase to the General Schedule (and some other pay systems). An alternative pay plan for locality pay will be announced by the end of November. However, the President announced that the combined increase in basic payroll due to the 1.0 percent increase and locality pay increases will be limited to 1.3 percent. In response to the planned pay raise, Richard G. Thissen, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), released the following statement: “Today, federal employees moved one step closer to a modest, 1 percent pay raise for the third year in a row. That certainly provides reason for thanks, but it is still a step too short, lagging behind the 2.3 percent increase recorded in the private sector.

“In the past five years, federal employees have endured a three-year pay freeze, two years of limited raises, reduced pay due to increased retirement contributions (without any added benefit), furloughs due to sequestration and a government shutdown that caused grave uncertainty. They have sacrificed enough.

“The President and Congress should resume the policy of providing federal employee pay increases in line with the private sector. We cannot expect to recruit and retain the talented employees necessary to meet the increasingly complex challenges and threats of today’s world without competitive pay.”

The Employment Cost Index (ECI), on which the annual raise is usually based, was 2.3 percent for the 12-month period ending September 2014. (The ECI measures the increase in employment costs in the private sector.) While federal employees were provided a 1 percent pay raise this year, the ECI rose 1.8 percent in the previous year. According to the Federal Salary Council, the pay gap between private- and public-sector employees is now 35 percent. Due to the pay freeze alone, federal workers have sacrificed $98 billion for deficit reduction. Over the past five years, the cost of goods and services has increased by 11 percent, and the wages and salaries of private-sector workers have increased by 8.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 # # #

The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) one of America’s oldest and largest associations, was founded in 1921 with the mission of protecting the earned rights and benefits of America’s active and retired federal workers. The largest federal employee/retiree organization, NARFE represents the interests of nearly five million current and future federal annuitants, spouses and survivors.