A draft memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) suggests that furloughed federal workers might not be guaranteed back pay for the time off due to the government shutdown.
An administration official confirmed to The Hill that the memo, initially reported by Axios, relies on a strict reading of the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which President Trump signed into law during the previous government shutdown.
The OMB memo argues that the law does not automatically promise all furloughed employees will receive back pay. It highlights a clause in the amended law stating that back pay is contingent upon “the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse.”
Efforts to deny back pay would likely face resistance from employees’ unions and contradict guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) last month, prior to the current government shutdown.
The OPM guidance features answers to frequently asked questions, including whether furloughed employees will get paid.
The OPM guidance says, “Yes. After the lapse in appropriations ends, employees furloughed due to the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those periods. Retroactive pay will be provided at the earliest possible date after the lapse ends, irrespective of scheduled pay dates.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, criticized the OMB memo as a “baseless attempt to scare & intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards.”
“The letter of the law is as plain as can be—federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their back pay following a shutdown,” Murray said.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the OMB memo an “obvious misinterpretation of the law.”
“As we’ve said before, the livelihoods of the patriotic Americans serving their country in the federal government are not bargaining chips in a political game,” Kelley said in a statement. “It’s long past time for these attacks on federal employees to stop and for Congress to come together, resolve their differences, and end this shutdown.”
The memo on back pay is the latest example of how the Trump administration is threatening action against federal workers amid the shutdown.
White House officials have for days warned of widespread layoffs across the government if the shutdown continues, even though past shutdowns have led to furloughs but not firings.
“We don’t want to see people laid off. But unfortunately, if this shutdown continues, layoffs are going to be an unfortunate consequence of that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday.
The Senate on Monday pushed the government shutdown to the one-week mark as Democrats blocked the GOP’s “clean” stopgap funding bill from advancing for a fifth time.
Democrats are demanding the stopgap bill include an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium tax credits that are slated to expire at the end of the year.
Updated at 10:37 a.m. EDT
