WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday told leaders in Congress that he is canceling a scheduled 2.1 percent pay increase for civilian federal workers in 2019, saying the move is needed to deal with rising federal deficits.
Trump informed House and Senate leaders in a letter sent Thursday.
“We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course,” the President wrote. “I view the increases that would otherwise take effect as inappropriate.”
Trump says in the letter that locality pay increases would cost $25 billion, on top of a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for most civilian government employees.
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Trump says he's determined that for 2019 "both across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at zero."
“These alternative pay plan decisions will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well‑qualified Federal workforce,” Trump wrote in his letter.
A pay freeze has happened before, as during contentious budget fights in the Obama Administration, President Obama froze pay for two years in 2011 and 2012.
But the decision was quickly condemned by Democrats in Congress and the unions representing federal workers.