Obama administration announces two-year federal pay freeze

Federal employees will not receive any pay increases for two years, Obama administration officials announced on Monday.

President Obama's proposed pay freeze for 2011 and 2012 will apply to all civilian workers, including Defense Department employees, but not to military personnel. Workers who are promoted to a higher General Schedule grade still will be eligible for pay raises, officials said.

According to the White House, the freeze will save $28 billion during the next five years. The measure is a continuation of the administration's Accountable Government Initiative, designed to cut cost and save taxpayer dollars.

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AFGE DENOUNCES OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PROPOSAL TO FREEZE PAY

Pay Freeze Proposal Amounts to Symbolic Gesture

WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees today decried President Obama’s proposal to freeze pay for federal civilian employees in 2011 and 2012.

“This proposal is a superficial panic reaction to the draconian cuts his deficit commission will recommend,” stated AFGE National President John Gage. “A federal pay freeze saves peanuts at best and, while he may mean it as just a public relations gesture, this is no time for political scapegoating. The American people didn’t vote to stick it to a VA nursing assistant making $28,000 a year or a border patrol agent earning $34,000 per year.

“President Obama asks federal workers to share the sacrifice, but it’s unconscionable for him to attack the wages of federal working people while the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street not only get their bailouts and astronomical bonuses; they also get their tax cuts,” concluded Gage.