Republicans said Tuesday they want federal workers to receive back pay when the government reopens despite a memo from the White House suggesting furloughed workers may not be entitled to it.
A draft White House memo says workers aren’t guaranteed compensation for the time they must work without pay during the government shutdown, despite a law that is largely interpreted to entitle those workers to that compensation, Axios first reported.
The Office of Management and Budget also stripped its shutdown guidance on Friday of reference to the law that says federal workers should receive back pay.
“I hope that the furloughed workers receive back pay, of course,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters. “We have some extraordinary Americans who serve the federal government, who serve valiantly, and they work hard, and they serve in these various agencies doing really important work.”
Trending
He said President Donald Trump agrees: “I can tell you the president believes that as well. He and I have talked about this personally. He doesn’t want people to go without pay, and that’s why he pleaded with Chuck Schumer to do the right thing and vote to keep the government open,” Johnson said.
Later Tuesday, Trump said he would “follow the law” on back pay, but added it could depend on the worker.
“I would say it depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump said at the White House during a bilateral summit with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “It really depends on who you’re talking about. But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
Retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was critical of the idea that unpaid workers would not receive back pay.
“I think that if you’re talking about my staff and other staff, that’s probably not a good message to send right now to people who are not being paid,” Tillis said. “I’m not an attorney, but I think it’s bad strategy.”
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said that whether workers receive back pay was a “settled” issue.
“As a backup, we could pass what often is passed after shutdowns, and that is a bill that says that any obligations that were incurred during the shutdown are authorized to be paid,” Collins added.
Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune both said they said they were unfamiliar with the statutes that the White House memo cited in arguing the government could skip back pay, but that they support the workers getting their paychecks.
“At some point, you’re going to have to make some decisions about who gets paid, who doesn’t get paid, which agencies and departments get prioritized and which ones don’t,” Thune told reporters. “I think that’s a fairly standard practice in the event of a government shutdown. Now, hopefully that doesn’t affect back pay.”
The Trump administration has made clear its shutdown strategy is to inflict pain on blue states and Democrats, as well as to carry out layoffs of federal workers while they have the authority.
The Republican leaders said back pay wouldn’t be an issue if Democrats joined with them to reopen the government.
“All you have to do to prevent any federal employee from not getting paid is to open up the government. All we need is four more Senate Democrats, maybe five, and the government gets opened up, and this becomes a nonissue,” Thune told reporters.
The prospect of no back pay seemed to be setting off alarm bells for Johnson, though he was quick to argue Democrats are the ones who must do something about it.
“If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats to do the right thing here,” Johnson said. “Even more pain, more than I just listed, for more people.”
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said his party is standing with federal workers as they “are now being victimized by this Trump Republican shutdown.”
“The law is clear — every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay period, full stop. The law is clear, and we will make sure that that law is followed,” Jeffries said in a news conference.
—
This article has been updated with additional reporting.
Author
Contributors
