GOP lawmakers are once again considering a litany of proposals that would require federal workers to pay more in exchange for less retirement and health care benefits.
A 50-page document, compiled by GOP members of the House Budget Committee and first reported by Politico, outlines a list of provisions that could be included in the package, which would not be subject to the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, includes a litany of proposals increasing federal workers’ contribution to their retirement and health care benefits, in exchange for worse payouts.
First is a proposal to standardize the amount Federal Employees Retirement System enrollees pay toward their defined-benefit annuity at 4.4%. Currently, FERS participants contribute 0.8% of their basic pay to their retirement if they were hired in 2012 or prior, 3.1% if they were hired in 2013, and 4.4% if they were hired in 2014 or later.
The document also suggests eliminating the FERS supplement for employees who retire before reaching Social Security eligibility at age 62, a provision that would disproportionately impact federal law enforcement officers, who are mostly required to retire when they turn 57 years old. And it revives a proposal from Trump’s first term to base federal retirees’ annuity payments on the average of the highest five years of an employee’s salary, compared to the current “High-3” calculation.
On health care benefits, the House GOP proposes replacing the current system, by which the federal government pays for a percentage of health care premiums through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the new Postal Service Health Benefits program, with a “voucher model.”
“Under this option, the FEHB and PSHB programs would be reformed by replacing the current premium-sharing structure with a voucher, which would not be subject to income and payroll taxes,” the document states.
Federal employees are grossly overpaid as it is! My Lord how many Holidays do you get each year?! It is time for President Trump and DOGE to rein in the government waste and bring federal employees’ salaries in line with the real world. Most skill sets necessary to hold a government job are basic high school equivalent education and yet government employees think they are entitled to far more compensation than college graduates who are capable of contributing to the overall betterment of society.
USPS employees are not making more than college graduates. USPS employees working a lot of overtime day and night in rain and when it’s hot or freezing outside. They get $21-25 an hour some started without benefits nor guarantee hours. Please take their jobs.
College graduates are capable of contributing to the overall betterment of society, but sadly, it is the majority of the highly skilled college graduates who are contributing to the demise of society through evil doings in the forms of power and greed. As far as pay, if you earn your income ethically, then you deserve the pay. Many have been hired by the USPS thinking it was an easy job with great pay. Those same people quit within a month… and yes some of those are “educated” people who had previously lost their white-collar positions due to economic circumstances in the world.