Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Senator Brian Schatz reintroduced the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act, a bill that would provide federal employees with a 4.3% pay increase in calendar year 2026. Ranking Member Connolly and Sen. Schatz previously introduced similar legislation in the 115th, 116th, 117th, and 118th Congresses.
“The federal workforce is our country’s single greatest asset,” said Ranking Member Connolly. “Even after serving dutifully through a global pandemic and enduring the Trump Administration’s cruel personal attacks, unsafe work environments, pay freezes, government shutdowns, sequestration cuts, furloughs, and mindless across-the-board hiring freezes, they come to work every day in service to the American people. As we prepare for another Trump Administration and its impact on our civil servants, it is only right that they be compensated fairly.”
“Whether it’s inspecting our food, conducting medical research, or caring for veterans, federal workers play an important role in our daily lives and deserve pay that reflects that,” said Senator Schatz. “Our bill boosts wages to keep public service jobs competitive with those in the private sector and maintain a strong and talented federal workforce.”
The federal government has a history of chronic underinvestment in its most valuable asset: the federal workforce. Federal employees have had to endure government shutdowns, pay freezes, hiring freezes, and lost pay as a result of sequestration-related furloughs.
According to the Federal Salary Council, Federal employees on average earned 24.72% less in 2024 than their counterparts in the private sector. In addition, the 2024 Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey governmentwide management report found that pay satisfaction rests at 59% compared to 67% in 2020. A lack of competitive pay hurts the recruitment, retention, and quality of the civil service, which in turn affects the dissemination of essential services across the country.
The Biden Administration has worked to reverse these trends, providing federal employees a 4.6% pay raise in 2023, a 5.2% pay raise in 2024, and a 2% pay raise in 2025. Nonetheless, federal employee pay increases have failed to keep pace with rising labor and living costs. The FAIR Act’s wage adjustment restores years of lost wage increases for federal employees by ensuring that federal employees, who serve in every state and territory on behalf of constituents in every congressional district, earn an average pay increase of 4.3%.
The FAIR Act is cosponsored by the following Members of Congress: Norton, Summer Lee, Subramanyam, Lynch, Beyer.
The FAIR Act is endorsed by the following organizations: The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Federal Managers Association (FMA), the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).
Text of the FAIR Act is available here.
