President Biden officially announced his plans to raise civilian federal employees pay next year on January 1st, 2022.
As anticipated, most civilian employees under the General Schedule will receive an average 2.7% federal pay raise in 2022.
This news was revealed in Biden’s letter to congressional leaders on Friday.
“Specifically, I have determined that for 2022, the across-the-board base pay increase will be 2.2% and locality increases will average 0.5%, resulting in an overall average increase of 2.7% for civilian federal employees,” Biden said in the letter.
The impending pay raise is significantly larger than the 1% bump civilian employee raise in 2021.
If lawmakers choose to enact different pay increase rates, those would take precedent over Biden’s plans, although that does not seem likely.
Based on where certain civilian employees work, they might receive slightly more depending on their locality pay area, while other employees may technically see a slightly lower figure.
Once officially enacted, around 2.1 million executive branch employees will receive the raise. Conversely, the raise will not apply to the more than 600,000 U.S. Postal Service employees since their raises are established through bargaining. Cost-of-living for federal retirees is also determined separately using Social Security benefits inflation measure.
Federal pay raises should go into effect during the first pay period in January, though no adjustments are official until the president signs an executive order formally implementing them. Past presidents usually sign those executive orders near the end of the calendar year.
Federal employee unions and organizations across the board have vocalized approval of the impending federal raise.
“We appreciate President Biden’s desire to give federal employees a pay raise in 2022, especially one that includes an increase in locality pay rates,” Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said Friday in a statement. “This is a vast improvement over the previous administration’s attempts to freeze federal pay.”
Military members are also eligible for the 2.7% pay raise in 2022.
Ken Thomas, the president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) released a statement on Friday saying that “NARFE is gratified, too, that the president answered its call earlier this year to increase locality pay rates by 0.5%, on average, ensuring that the average pay increase is on par with recent private-sector wage growth and the anticipated military pay increase”.
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