The minimum wage for government employees is going to be raised to $15 an hour, according to a new guidance from the Office of Personnel Management.
Nearly 70,000 federal workers, most of whom work at the Departments of Defense, Agriculture and Veteran Affairs, will be affected by the directive, OPM said in a statement on Friday. The minimum wage applies to all executive branch agencies except the U.S. Postal Service and Postal Regulatory Commission.
Agencies are expected to implement the higher wage by January 30. There are 2.2 million federal workers, a majority of whom earn $15 an hour. There are 2.2 million federal workers, the largest share 56,000 who don't earn $15 an hour at the Department of Defense, according to the memo.
Kiran Ahuja, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said in the statement that the federal government should increase pay rates to minimum of $15 per hour to reflect our appreciation for the federal workforce and our values as a nation.
The minimum wage for federal contractors was raised by President Biden in April, after he signed an executive order that would raise the minimum wage from $10.95 an hour. In the coming years the minimum wage will be indexed to inflation so that the pay reflects changes in the cost of living.
Biden's executive order eliminated the minimum wage for federal contractors by 2024, requiring those workers to earn the same $15 minimum wage as other employees.
The White Houses said in April that the minimum wage will increase worker productivity and generate higher-quality work by boosting workers health, morale and effort, reducing absenteeism and turnover, and lowering supervisory and training costs.
The Democrats want to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025, but they have failed to move it through Congress.
According to a report released by the Congressional Budget Office, as many as 3.7 million workers could lose their jobs because of the minimum wage increase. Some 17 million workers are projected to receive a pay boost from the CBO at the same time.
The federal minimum wage has not gone up in more than a decade, but a growing number of states have voted to adopt their own wage increases. There are 29 states with wages above the federal minimum wage, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California currently has the highest minimum wage in the nation, at $15 an hour.