Yahoo News – by President Barack Obama, as signaled earlier in the year, signed an executive order on Monday setting federal civilian and military pay rates for 2014, and including the first raise for civilian workers in four years.
Military and civilian employees will get a 1 percent raise in the new year, consistent with the level laid out in Obama’s earlier budget proposal.
The order had to be signed before January 1 to allow federal agencies to update their pay systems for the new year.
Congress could have declined to authorize the increases on at least two occasions in recent months, including when lawmakers passed a two-year budget agreement earlier this month, but chose not to intervene.
Federal civilian workers have had their pay frozen for three years. Military employees have received a salary increase each year that Obama has been in office, the White House said.
Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives, praised the move as a “modest but important step” against the background of an improving economy.
Revised figures last week showed economic growth in the United States was an annualized 4.1 percent in the third quarter, the strongest since the final three months of 2011.
“In the case of federal civilian employees … given that these hardworking public servants have already contributed nearly $114 billion toward deficit reduction and some were furloughed as a result of the shutdown and the sequester, it is long overdue,” Hoyer said.
Employee unions have praised the increase as a small first step toward relief for the mostly middle-class workers on the federal payroll.
Still, those workers continue to lose ground in real terms. The latest annual inflation rate for the United States was 1.2 percent for the 12 months ended November 2013. For calendar 2012 the rate was 2.1 percent.
(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Gary Hill)
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/obama-signs-order-federal-worker-pay-raises-2014-004135276.html
I was recently notified by my school board that I am personally liable for public posts and could be fired for posts that break school board policy. I read the notice and accept full liability for my words posted here because they are truth in my experience. I’ve been furloughed since Jan. 2010 (3 1/2 years with one school board and 1/2 year with a new one in the same state) which I just calculated to be about $8,000 in salary lost due to furloughs over 4 years (based on average 40,000 yr. salary). The furloughs continue even though all big corporations and banks continue to report multi-millions, billions in profits/bonuses. A 1% increase for 2014 gives me back $400. Really??? And furloughs continue? I’m sorry if I’m not jumping for joy. We’ve had a forced reduction in work days to reduce our annual income. And even worse, other cutbacks to education have left us without resources that we desperately need to teach and help students be successful. This ‘sounds good’ and makes the public think that solutions are happening, but if you work out your own losses to salary over the past 4 -6 years, a 1% increase for 2014 is just sad. Very sad indeed. That’s if you’re lucky enough to be working – with a connection to the federal government. Actually the federal government only pays about $2500 towards my salary I think, so that’s a $20 increase per year if the state doesn’t give the same increase. Hardly progress. Just sayin’!!
Yep, it is an election year.