President Trump issued an executive order Friday canceling a 2.1 percent pay raise for all federal civilian workers that was scheduled for January, instead freezing their pay for the duration of 2019. The order also cancels a January "locality pay increase," an annual adjustment of federal salaries tied to local cost of living, but it does not affect a 2.6 percent raise planned for military forces.
"This is just pouring salt into the wound," Tony Reardon of the National Treasury Employees Union said in a statement. "It is shocking that federal employees are taking yet another financial hit. As if missed paychecks and working without pay [because of the partial government shutdown] were not enough, now they have been told that they don't even deserve a modest pay increase."
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