Is this really up to a President?
What if she, or he, decides to double their pay?
What if she, or he, decides to double their pay?
I believe what happened is he used a provision called "pay parity", back in the 1990's the Federal Employee Unions pushed for a provision to tie Federal Employee Pay increases to Military Pay, so if the soldiers got a raise, all Federal Employees automatically got the same equivalent raise. They got half of what the wanted, the provision that passed allowed the president to match military and Federal Employee raises but didn't require it. In the Defense Authorization Bill that just passed, Congress raised Military pay by 2.1%, so Obama activated the "pay parity" provision and was able to raise federal employee pay the same amount without having to go through congress.