Congressional Republicans tentatively agree to raise federal worker pay, rebuffing Trump

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

Congressional Republicans have tentatively agreed to a 1.9 percent pay raise for the nation’s 2 million civilian federal workers, overruling President Trump who sought to freeze their pay.

The preliminary deal between House and Senate Republicans is also likely to lift a salary freeze affecting hundreds of executive-level employees and appointees including Vice President Pence and members of the Trump Cabinet, according to lawmakers and aides.

Democrats oppose that element of the deal, and the package could change when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill following the midterm elections and complete negotiations.

Republicans who had been pushing to give civilian federal workers a raise hailed the outcome. GOP lawmakers including Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) had pushed Trump to reverse his initial decision in August to deny the raise.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/congressional-republicans-tentatively-agree-to-raise-federal-worker-pay-rebuffing-trump/2018/10/04/2befe952-bcf2-11e8-8792-78719177250f_story.html

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I expect throwing this bone out there is supposed to help GOP congress members in districts/states that have large federal (civilian) populations.

[Andy823]

1. The key word is " tentatively"

We will see what happens after the elections are done. They can say all kinds of crap now, but after the elections are over it's a whole new ball game.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Agree although I think some of the timing also has to do with the CR

that they have in place right now (that I think is up again December 7th, IIRC) where the could attach it to whatever minibus appropriations that they have left to do.

[turbinetree]

3. I guess the tax cut didn't work the miracles they said it was going to do

after all most federal wages are based on Congress and 1.4% for 2018 isn't shit, when you compare to the likes of Corker getting a pass thru tax breaks of thousands, after all $452.00 for a G5 amounts to $1.23 cents a day, for 365 days of the year..........................




https://www.federalpay.org/gs/raises

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Plus they keep forgeting there is the "Pay Comparability Act of 1990" in place

which allowed them to do this sort of "no raise for you!" thing if there is an economic emergency.

HOWEVER they can't keep bragging about how bigly wonderful and fantastic the economy is and then turn around and start whining about how giving a raise to feds would be an economy killer after we (I am a retired fed now) had 3 years of nothing, then a couple years of 1% during the "Great Recession" - all while the military gets their pay raise.

I hate to say but back in the '90s, we had to deal with Bill Clinton trying to pull the same thing when the economy was finally "booming" after the early '90s recession that helped to sweep him into office, yet he was trying to implement a pay freeze.

[turbinetree]

5. I remember that..............and seniors on social security will get a whooping 2% in 2018

based on the COLA ..................I will get about $38.00 bucks per month...................

[BumRushDaShow]

6. I'm still waiting to hear what my federal COLA is going to be

and that is supposed to be finalized sometime during the middle of this month, but current estimates are running at 2.8% for my annunity.

They actually haven't announced the SS one yet - that is supposed to happen October 11th (for 2019). It may be more than 2% this year though, which was your this year's (2018) amount based on 2017 calculations.

A SS COLA guesstimate based on the data they use to calculate it to date -

The data set is incomplete, which is why most folks are anxiously awaiting the BLS' October release of September's inflation data. But based on the two CPI-W readings we do have, we're looking at an average reading of 246.2455, or 6.5775 points higher than last year. If we take this figure and divide it into the baseline number, we get a percentage increase of 2.74%. When rounded to the nearest 0.1%, this works out to a preliminary "guestimate" of 2.7% COLA for 2019. Again, we're missing a month of data, but this looks to be the best COLA beneficiaries have received in seven years.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/09/22/a-preliminary-look-at-social-securitys-2019-cola.aspx

[maxrandb]

7. You should have been a billionaire

Then you'd see improvement to your bottom line under the Retrumplicans