Pay

Retirement planning is essential for just about everyone but if you work for Uncle Sam, a few things can cost you once you’ve switched from larger biweekly paychecks to a smaller monthly annuity deposit.

Years after the buyout surge of the 1990s some still-working feds are hanging on until the next round of buyouts. But that could take a while.

The Trump administration is also planning to study the full scope of federal employees’ pay, benefits other opportunities for recognition, in effort to prove to Congress that the workforce would benefit from more flexible performance-based awards over across-the-board pay raises.

In today’s Federal Newscast, the Trump administration says it now sees an opportunity to build on many of the 14 cross-agency priority goals outlined in the President’s Management Agenda.

The Trump administration’s 2020 budget proposal includes significant changes in federal employee retirement programs, most of which are cuts but with one exception.

The federal employment question forms a knot that remains difficult to untie.

Retirement expert John Grobe, himself a former fed, said the length and uncertainty of the recent shutdown has a lot more people thinking about retirement, or just leaving government for greener pastures.

The Trump administration on Wednesday acknowledged that some federal employees are frustrated with how long it’s taken to see the 1.9 percent retroactive pay raise.

Who would apply for a job at a place where you might be forced to work without pay for a month, or that is threatened with bankruptcy every year? American University’s Bob Tobias says that is how the federal government looks right now.

In today’s Federal Newscast, the General Services Administration is changing how it verifies that companies are eligible to do business with or receive assistance from the government.

The detailed version of the President’s 2020 budget request includes a series of familiar pay and retirement cuts and a wide variety of proposals designed to change the way agencies compensate, hire, manage and reward both current and future federal employees.

Bipartisan support is growing for a proposed bill to remove barriers to federal employment for people with a criminal record.

Of the eligible Federal Employees Retirement System participants who have Thrift Savings Plan accounts, January participation rates rose by less than 1 percent because of missed contributions due to the partial government shutdown.

Sen. James Lankford says whatever retirement changes occur should only apply to new hires. Hear this story and more in today’s Federal Newscast.