President Biden’s Budget Calls for 2% Pay Raise, Expands Workforce Initiatives
While Congress is still trying to finalize funding for fiscal year (FY) 2024, the Biden Administration released its FY 2025 budget proposal. Overall, the White House is asking for $1.63 trillion in total spending, which is just 0.7 percent over FY 2023 enacted levels.
The president’s budget opens the door to funding debates with Congress by outlining the president’s priorities for government funding and revenue generation. While it almost certainly won’t pass in its current form, the budget proposal gives Congress and the American people key insight into the administration’s thinking.
Federal Pay
The budget request contains numerous items that will impact the federal workforce. On the topic of pay, the White House is pushing for a more modest two percent (2 percent) federal pay raise for General Schedule (GS) employees, and a 4.5 percent pay raise for members of the military.
“I’m disappointed because I’ve always been for parity,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee, told reporters yesterday, according to Bloomberg, noting that he “will work to address this issue in this year’s appropriations process.”
The GS pay raise would be the smallest since President Biden took office but is on par with pre-pandemic raises and comes as inflation is projected to cool. Last year, feds received about a 5.4 percent raise on average.
“It illustrates the administration’s continued strong commitment to the civil service, reflecting the need to attract the talent necessary to serve Americans and recognizing the fiscal constraints Federal agencies face,” President Biden said in the budget request.
Nevertheless, some federal employee groups were not happy.
“Federal employees are the backbone of our country, yet they continue to be underpaid. Like many Americans, frontline federal workers face increasing costs that stretch their families’ budgets to the breaking point and this cannot continue,” said National Treasury Employees Union national president Doreen Greenwald.
“The Administration continues to prioritize Federal compensation and also looks forward to working with Congress to address long-standing issues of pay compression which impact employees at various levels throughout the Government,” Jason Miller, OMB Deputy Director for Management and Kiran Ahuja, OPM Director, wrote in a blog post on the budget’s workforce provisions.
Federal Workforce
Beyond pay, the budget has provisions to expand the federal workforce. That includes expanding onramps for early career talent into public service, investing in a culture of data and data-driven decision making for HR, and building capability to advance hiring priorities like AI and technology.
In addition, there is a push to further the federal government’s ability to rely on data and evidence to drive policymaking decisions.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plans to hire more program evaluation experts into the federal workforce and is setting government job qualification standards for these positions across the federal government.
“Evidence-driven policies and programs keep Americans safer and healthier and strengthen their access to educational and economic opportunity,” OMB wrote in its analytical perspectives accompanying the administration’s 2025 budget request. “
Meanwhile. OPM is requesting a budget of $465.8 million in discretionary resources for FY 2025.
OPM says its “emphasis will be on delivering the ambitious set of objectives in our Strategic Plan – including customer experience, data leadership, and modernization – and supporting the policy objectives needed to build a strong Federal workforce.”
