A Five-Year Pay Freeze?

A proposal unveiled late Thursday by the Republican Study Committee includes many reforms that would impact the federal workforce, including one that would extend the current federal pay freeze from two years to five.

The plan -- the Spending Reduction Act of 2011 -- would cut the civil service by a total of 15 percent through attrition. The bill would allow the hiring of only one new worker for every two workers who leave the federal government until the 15 percent reduction target has been met.

The bill also would eliminate automatic pay increases for federal workers for the next five years and prohibit federal employees from serving as union officials on government time.

The news comes just days after the Partnership for Public Service released a report urging federal agencies to ramp up their retention programs and strategies in order to retain top-notch workers who may leave or retire due to the two-year pay freeze and other budget cuts. What impact would these new workforce cuts and a five-year pay freeze have on workers' willingness to stay in their jobs, particularly as the economy recovers? Would agencies be able to do enough to retain them?