WASHINGTON - Federal employees and military service members would receive average raises of 4.6 percent next January under the budget President Joe Biden will propose in March, marking what would be the workforce's largest salary hike in two decades, according to senior officials at two federal agencies.
The pay increase would follow an average 2.7 percent raise that took effect last month for 2.1 million executive branch workers, as Biden proposed early last year. The increase took effect by default under a federal pay law after Congress took no position on the increase by the end of December.
The salary boost Biden will propose for 2023 will be part of a wide-ranging budget the administration is expected to release in early March for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Raises are paid in January.
The Office of Management and Budget declined to comment. The senior officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the budget proposal publicly.
A 4.6 percent raise would be the largest since 2002, when the workforce received the same increase. The raise two years earlier, in 2000, averaged 4.8 percent, the largest since 1981.