SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Several members of President Donald Trump's cabinet attend a meeting in June 2017. Vice President Mike Pence (far right), along with other top administration officials, is getting a significant raise this weekend amid the government shutdown. (Photo: Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
With 800,000 Public Employees Facing Pay Freeze and Shutdown, Pence and Other Top Trump Officials to Get $10K Raise
"This administration's corruption and hypocrisy are remarkable."
Jan 03, 2019
While 800,000 federal workers are currently either working without pay or furloughed and not entitled to retroactive pay, President Donald Trump's top appointees as well as Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to get pay raises averaging about $10,000 per year on Saturday--and the shutdown is to blame for the glaring inequity.
An executive pay freeze, which caps the salaries of top government employees and has been in place since 2013, lapsed on Dec. 21 because Congress was unable to pass the spending bill in which it was included, leading to the government shutdown that's now gone on for two weeks.
Without the salary caps in place, Pence is entitled to a $13,000 raise on Saturday, bringing his compensation to $243,500 per year. Cabinet secretaries will be given raises of about $11,000, bringing their pay to $210,000, while their deputies and other top agency administrators will be given significant raises as well.
On social media, critics were incensed Friday at the hypocrisy of cabinet members collecting raises while employees go without any pay at all.
The news of the executive pay raises was especially galling for many due to the executive order Trump signed just last week, freezing the pay of about two million public employees in 2019. The president claimed the government can't afford a 2.1 percent raise for workers, in a move that National Treasury Employees Union president Toney Reardon likened to "pouring salt into the wound."
At the end of the first day of the new session of Congress on Thursday, House Democrats pushed through a bill to reinstate the executive pay freeze and reopen parts of the government without funding Trump's border wall. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to allow a vote on the bill, calling the raises expected Saturday "outrageous."
"I call on Leader McConnell to allow the Senate to vote on the measures House Democrats passed last night to end the Trump shutdown, reopen government, and provide retroactive pay to those who have been forced to go without a paycheck as a result of the president's temper tantrum," Hoyer said in a statement.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
While 800,000 federal workers are currently either working without pay or furloughed and not entitled to retroactive pay, President Donald Trump's top appointees as well as Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to get pay raises averaging about $10,000 per year on Saturday--and the shutdown is to blame for the glaring inequity.
An executive pay freeze, which caps the salaries of top government employees and has been in place since 2013, lapsed on Dec. 21 because Congress was unable to pass the spending bill in which it was included, leading to the government shutdown that's now gone on for two weeks.
Without the salary caps in place, Pence is entitled to a $13,000 raise on Saturday, bringing his compensation to $243,500 per year. Cabinet secretaries will be given raises of about $11,000, bringing their pay to $210,000, while their deputies and other top agency administrators will be given significant raises as well.
On social media, critics were incensed Friday at the hypocrisy of cabinet members collecting raises while employees go without any pay at all.
The news of the executive pay raises was especially galling for many due to the executive order Trump signed just last week, freezing the pay of about two million public employees in 2019. The president claimed the government can't afford a 2.1 percent raise for workers, in a move that National Treasury Employees Union president Toney Reardon likened to "pouring salt into the wound."
At the end of the first day of the new session of Congress on Thursday, House Democrats pushed through a bill to reinstate the executive pay freeze and reopen parts of the government without funding Trump's border wall. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to allow a vote on the bill, calling the raises expected Saturday "outrageous."
"I call on Leader McConnell to allow the Senate to vote on the measures House Democrats passed last night to end the Trump shutdown, reopen government, and provide retroactive pay to those who have been forced to go without a paycheck as a result of the president's temper tantrum," Hoyer said in a statement.
While 800,000 federal workers are currently either working without pay or furloughed and not entitled to retroactive pay, President Donald Trump's top appointees as well as Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to get pay raises averaging about $10,000 per year on Saturday--and the shutdown is to blame for the glaring inequity.
An executive pay freeze, which caps the salaries of top government employees and has been in place since 2013, lapsed on Dec. 21 because Congress was unable to pass the spending bill in which it was included, leading to the government shutdown that's now gone on for two weeks.
Without the salary caps in place, Pence is entitled to a $13,000 raise on Saturday, bringing his compensation to $243,500 per year. Cabinet secretaries will be given raises of about $11,000, bringing their pay to $210,000, while their deputies and other top agency administrators will be given significant raises as well.
On social media, critics were incensed Friday at the hypocrisy of cabinet members collecting raises while employees go without any pay at all.
The news of the executive pay raises was especially galling for many due to the executive order Trump signed just last week, freezing the pay of about two million public employees in 2019. The president claimed the government can't afford a 2.1 percent raise for workers, in a move that National Treasury Employees Union president Toney Reardon likened to "pouring salt into the wound."
At the end of the first day of the new session of Congress on Thursday, House Democrats pushed through a bill to reinstate the executive pay freeze and reopen parts of the government without funding Trump's border wall. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to allow a vote on the bill, calling the raises expected Saturday "outrageous."
"I call on Leader McConnell to allow the Senate to vote on the measures House Democrats passed last night to end the Trump shutdown, reopen government, and provide retroactive pay to those who have been forced to go without a paycheck as a result of the president's temper tantrum," Hoyer said in a statement.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.