President Trump Signs Executive Order Canceling Federal Workers’ Pay Increase for 2019

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Friday freezing federal workers’ salaries for 2019, coming as hundreds of thousands of them are either furloughed or working without pay because of a political standoff over government funding.

The order halts the automatic 2.1 percent increase all civilian workers would have received under federal pay laws. Military personnel, who have been funded separately, will still receive a 2.6 percent raise.

Workers unions say Trump is pouring “salt into the wound” by delivering the pay freeze as 800,000 federal workers continue to shoulder the burden of a partial government shutdown. We’re now nine days in to the political standoff between the president and Congress over Trump’s requested $5 billion for the border wall — with no end in sight. The Office of Personnel Management has even taken the unusual step of issuing guidance to workers about how to bargain with landlords and mortgage companies if they can’t make rent.