Issue Position: Federal Employees

Issue Position

The Fifth Congressional District is home to thousands of federal employees and retirees, both military and civilian. Congressman Hoyer is proud to represent them and has led the fight on issues important to public servants, including securing fair pay and benefits, with a strong focus on ensuring pay parity between military and civilian personnel. Congressman Hoyer drafted and helped secure passage of the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act, signed into law in November 1990, to help ensure fairness in pay and comparability to similar work outside the Federal government.

Congressman Hoyer has consistently opposed efforts to reduce the wages, benefits, and hours of federal employees in an attempt by some to bring down our nation's deficit on the backs of middle-class families. Federal employees have already contributed $138 billion toward deficit reduction through freezes to cost-of-living-adjustments and changes to retirement benefits.

In addition to this contribution, many federal employees were furloughed in 2013 as a result of the arbitrary and untargeted spending cuts known as sequestration. These furloughs were costly and unnecessary. Not only did they lower morale among our federal workforce, but they undermined the critical work federal employees perform to support the well-being and security of our nation. Congressman Hoyer continues to urge his colleagues to replace the sequesterspending cutsto avoid furloughs in the future.

Throughout his career, Congressman Hoyer has also advocated for quality health care coverage, a solid retirement system and fair working conditions for federal employees in Maryland and throughout the country.

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