The Biden administration directed federal agencies to pay their employees at least $15 an hour, giving a pay boost to 67,000 federal workers in field offices across the country.
Agencies will have until Jan. 30 to implement the pay increase, according to a guidance document from the Office of Personnel Management released Friday.
The announcement from the OPM acts on an executive order President Joe Biden issued in January 2021, directing the office to provide recommendations “to promote” a $15 hourly minimum wage for federal employees. The hourly federal minimum wage now is $7.25, although many federal workers are in one of the 30 states that have raised local minimum wages above that rate.
The pay increase will largely affect workers at the Department of Defense, according to OPM, where over 56,000 workers will be due for a raise under the change.
The Biden administration said the pay bump will help ensure federal employees have a “pathway to the middle class” and set a “high bar” for other employers to follow.
“As the largest employer in the country, how the federal government treats its workforce has real impact,” Kiran Ahuja, director of the OPM, said in a statement. “Increasing pay rates to at least $15 per hour will keep the federal government competitive in the marketplace and is another way that we can serve as a model employer.”
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