Hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers may not automatically receive back pay after the government reopens, President Trump announced Tuesday, sparking new fears that the administration may try to circumvent federal rules and maximize the pain of the shutdown.
The president's comments, which echoed a draft memo circulated around the White House, contradicted the administration's own guidance that furloughed employees would receive retroactive pay shortly after Congress passes a funding agreement.
After the longest shutdown in history — a five-week lockdown that began under Trump in late 2018 — Congress passed a law that guaranteed back pay for the millions of federal workers who often bear the financial brunt of funding shortfalls. That measure, known as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, applied not only to this shutdown but also to future budget deficits, eliminating a major source of uncertainty for federal employees caught up in the political conflict.
Mr. Trump signed this measure into law in 2019. But six years later, his government appears to have interpreted its guarantees very differently.
In the draft memo shared by a White House official on Tuesday, the administration noted that once the standoff ends, only workers deemed essential may automatically be eligible for pay. This includes military personnel, air traffic controllers and others who are currently required to report for duty during the lockdown.
However, for those furloughed, the White House memo outlines that Congress still must specifically approve funding for any payments.
Asked whether those workers would actually lose their back pay, Trump told reporters at the White House that it “depends on who you're talking about.” He added that there are “some people who really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we're going to take care of them differently.”
When Mr. Trump was later pressed on the legality of his actions given the law he had enacted, he insisted that he would “follow the law and that what the law says is right.”
Union officials and Democratic lawmakers quickly criticized Mr. Trump for what they described as the latest attempt to use federal workers as bargaining chips during the shutdown. The president has separately threatened to lay off government workers while federal offices remain closed, prompting unions to file lawsuits to stop the mass layoffs.
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the White House had made a “frivolous argument” about back pay and a “blatant misinterpretation of the law,” noting that the administration itself appears to be taking a very different position on public governance.
A question-and-answer document posted online by the Office of Personnel Management specifically states that “employees who were furloughed due to the loss of work will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the chamber's Appropriations Committee, said on social media that the White House memo represented just “another baseless attempt to intimidate federal employees.”
“The language of the law is as clear as can be: Federal employees, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their back pay following a shutdown,” she said.
Axios previously reported on the memo.