Main Street

Freezing Workers Out

President Obama’s move to freeze wages for federal workers is so wrong on so many levels:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says today’s White House announcement of a two-year pay freeze for federal workers is “bad for the middle class, bad for the economy and bad for business.”

No one is served by our government participating in a “race to the bottom” in wages. The president talked about the need for shared sacrifice, but there’s nothing shared about Wall Street and CEOs making record profits and bonuses while working people bear the brunt.

Pointing to the upcoming federal deficit commission report that is expected to call for wide ranging cuts in crucial federal programs and policies, AFGE President John Gage offered a much more blunt criticism of the pay freeze:

This proposal is a superficial panic reaction to the draconian cuts his deficit commission will recommend. A federal pay freeze saves peanuts at best and, while he may mean it as just a public relations gesture, this is no time for political scapegoating.

Gage says the two-year freeze barely makes a dent in the federal budget deficit but will be devastating to the “VA nursing assistant making $28,000 a year or a border patrol agent earning $34,000 per year.”

President Obama asks federal workers to share the sacrifice, but it’s unconscionable for him to attack the wages of federal working people while the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street not only get their bailouts and astronomical bonuses; they also get their tax cuts.

Mark Sumner and Scarecrow go into more detail on why this move won’t be helpful to the economy, while Jed Lewison and Chris Bowers look at the political ramifications.

Tags: public sector workers