This Is America: Cheeto-In-Chief Donald Trump Issues Executive Order Freezing Federal Workers’ Pay

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President Trump Issues Executive Order Freezing Federal Workers’ Pay

According to CNN, Donald Trump has issued an executive order freezing federal workers’ pay for 2019. The decision reportedly does away with a 2.1% across-the-board pay raise that was set to take effect in January, meaning hundreds of thousands of federal employees are expecting to begin the new year furloughed or working without pay because of a partial government shutdown.

Lawmakers could potentially include a pay raise for 2019 in a spending bill to reopen the government, but ongoing negotiations have been at a standstill over money for Trump’s border wall. Trump told lawmakers he planned to kill the 2019 pay bump for federal workers in August, saying the federal budget couldn’t support it. The executive order also cancels a yearly adjustment of paychecks based on the region of the country where workers are located.

About 380,000 federal employees are on furlough and 420,000 are working without pay as the new year approaches. “We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” says Trump.

Trump also stressed that a pay freeze would not affect the federal government’s ability to attract qualified workers. He cited his statutory authority to adjust pay out of “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare.”

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