Biden gives bureaucrats biggest pay bump since Carter as Americans feel crushed by inflation

Beginning in January, federal civilian employees will see their salaries increase by the largest percentage since the Carter administration.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order in December giving federal employees an average of a 5.2% increase in pay, the largest increase since former President Jimmy Carter raised federal salaries by 9.1% in 1980. Meanwhile, Americans are dealing with inflation and a generally poor economy, with some blaming high government spending, according to recent polling.

Seventy-six percent of Americans reported that their income is not keeping up with inflation, according to a poll conducted by CBS News and YouGov this month. Fifty-six percent of Americans polled felt government spending, like the pay increases Biden is giving to federal bureaucrats, is causing high inflation.

Federal employees will see a 4.7% pay increase across the board as well as an additional bump, averaging 0.5%, depending on where they are based. Federal workers in the San Francisco area, for instance, will get an additional 0.9% raise, according to the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Members of the armed forces will also receive an average pay bump of 5.2% in the coming year, per the National Defense Authorization Act. Their pay increase, however, was approved by Congress while the pay increase for civilian bureaucrats was implemented unilaterally by Biden.

“The federal government is the nation’s largest employer and must ensure it has the talent to meet the needs of the American people,” a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Executing on the president’s 5.2 percent pay increase for both military and civilian workers recognizes the federal workforce’s dedication and service to the American people and positions the federal government to better compete in the labor market to attract and retain a well-qualified workforce.”

All American employees working in private industry saw a 4.5% salary increase between Sept. 2022 and Sept. 2023, according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Inflation grew at 3.1% between Nov. 2022 and Nov. 2023, according to the BLS.

Federal employees received a pay bump of 4.6% in 2023, according to Government Executive.

Federal employees already make significantly more money than those working outside the federal government.

The average pay for federal employees was $98,943 in 2023, according to data collected by OPM. Pay in some locales is even higher, with federal employees in Washington, D.C., bringing in an average of $135,078 per year and feds in Maryland taking home an average of $128,663.

The median salary in the United States was $1,118 per week as of October, which works out to about $58,000 a year, according to the BLS. That figure includes federal employees.

Federal employees can use their salaries to contribute to political campaigns. When federal employees donate, they heavily favor the Democratic Party.

Of the $2 million that federal workers at 14 agencies donated to presidential campaigns as of the month before the 2016 election, approximately $1.9 million went to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to The Hill. Only about 5% of federal employee donations went to Donald Trump during the 2016 cycle.

Even when Trump was in charge of the executive branch during the 2020 election cycle, federal employees still heavily favored Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee. Biden raised $1.06 million from federal employees between 2019 and October 2020 while Trump raised just $743,000, according to Government Executive.

Public sector unions also heavily favor the Democratic Party. The top 20 recipients of public union funds were Democrats during the 2020 election cycle, with Biden leading the pack with more than $420,000 in donations, according to OpenSecrets.

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