80+ lawmakers push for contractor back pay
As federal employees still wait to receive their retroactive pay raise, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle from both chambers are pushing appropriators to include back pay for federal contractors.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle from both chambers are pushing appropriators to include back pay for federal contractors.
Forty-eight representatives wrote to House appropriators urging them to include contractor back pay in either supplemental appropriations bills for fiscal year 2019 or in the fiscal year 2020 legislation.
"Employees of federal contractors and their families should not be penalized for a government shutdown that they did nothing to cause," the lawmakers wrote to House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and ranking member Kay Granger (R-Texas). "The shutdown has left contractors, who often work shoulder-to-shoulder with federal employees, struggling or unable to pay their mortgage, rent or other household bills."
The letter follows last week's push from 39 senators who penned a letter to their chamber's appropriators, urging them to include contractor back pay in appropriations legislation.
Meanwhile, federal employees, whose back pay was included in the agreement to reopen government, are still waiting to receive their codified 1.9 percent pay increase. The White House's fiscal year 2020 budget included steep cuts to employee benefits and renewed last year's proposal to freeze civilian-side pay.
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