WASHINGTON —If you are an ICE agent or a billionaire, the latest Trump budget is chock-full of money for you, but if you are a federal worker who keeps the country running, there is not even a single dime. The proposed wage increase for you next year is $0.00.
Immigration services, as late as ten years ago, operated on a $9 billion annual budget. Now, for 2027, Trump is pushing for $85 billion for ICE and nothing for raises for the vast majority of other federal workers. An agency that encourages and shields violent police activity against people exercising their constitutional rights is funded at an extremely high level, while the people who keep the country running on a day-to-day basis are budgeted for nothing. Trump says they will not even get the agreed-upon cost of living (COLA) increase.
The zero-dollar hikes follow the meager two percent raise they got in 2025 and the one percent they got this year.
There are exceptions to Trump’s “thrift.” Military personnel would get increases from 5 to 7 percent and federal law enforcement officers—including Trump’s violent ICE agents—would get 3.8%. The law enforcement officers would also get COLAs to help offset inflation.
The combination of raises for the few but nothing for the many outraged federal union presidents and a bipartisan group of 110 congressional allies, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Reps. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., and Steny Hoyer, D-Md., a former House Majority Leader.
But the lawmakers signaled, in a September 24 letter to their own leaders, that they’d be happy with a 3.8% hike across the board for all the civilians. The day before, Trump stated a “national emergency” justified skimpy or nonexistent raises. He didn’t say what the emergency was.
Since re-entering the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump has waged continual war on his own workforce. Trump hired trillionaire Elon Musk, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and Musk’s chainsaw to lop off the jobs, if not the heads, of some 300,000 federal workers. Trump also trashed 37 union contracts covering a million workers.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget chief, Russell Vought, who once said he wanted every federal worker to wake up scared for their job, persists in transferring offices out to rural red states and forcing workers—mostly women or workers of color–to move or quit. Vought also pushed tens of thousands more workers out through early buyouts, which ended 11 months ago.
At a September 23 press conference, union Presidents Randy Erwin of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a Machinists sector, and Everett Kelley, who leads the Government Employees (AFGE), the largest federal workers union, denounced Trump’s zero increase as an effective cut for present workers and a big roadblock to attracting talented people to the federal workforce. Dave Spero, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, echoed the roadblock point.
And pay raises are needed, they said, because federal responsibilities have grown and the U.S. population has too, since the workforce was under two million, some 60 years ago.
“Federal workers are ordinary, middle-class Americans living in every corner of this great country,” Erwin said. “Regardless of where you live, they are your friends and neighbors, and like most people, federal employees just want to make a fair living and provide for their families. But for federal employees, that has become harder and harder to do.”
Left unsaid is that, contrary to Republican rhetoric about overpaid federal workers who live mostly in metro D.C., most work long hours for pay far below that of their private sector colleagues, non- partisan studies show. And 85% live outside the D.C.-Maryland-Northern Virginia area.
“If Congress permits the pay freeze President Trump has proposed, in a way that is clearly political retribution for some perceived offense most federal employees had nothing to do with, it will make recruiting and retaining the workforce the American people need next to impossible,” Erwin, a veteran—as is Kelley—warned.
“This is a slap in the face to the dedicated civil servants who keep our nation running and will make it harder for federal agencies to recruit and retain essential employees,” said AFGE President Kelley. “For years, wages for federal employees haven’t kept pace with rising costs for housing, food, utilities and other essentials,” he told Government Executive’s website.
“Private-sector workers currently earn 27% more on average than federal employees doing the same job. To add insult to injury, the administration is asking for special approval to pay hundreds of employees ‘requiring an extremely high level of expertise’ up to $400,000 a year—equal to the president’s base salary—even as it denies workers a basic cost-of-living raise.”
Spero’s union represents Federal Aviation Administration workers who install and maintain air traffic control and other aviation safety equipment. He said a zero raise jeopardizes efforts to hire new technicians to replace those who retire or leave.
“The FAA’s workforce plan to hire an additional 750 technicians just became that much more difficult,” Spero told Government Executive. “Aviation safety inspectors and other critical employees will begin to retire, and the recruitment of these aviation safety professionals will suffer.”
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