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“There are some people that don’t deserve to be taken care of,” President Donald Trump said Tuesday when asked about back pay.
WASHINGTON — On the seventh day of the federal government shutdown, the Trump administration is suggesting that federal employees who have been furloughed might not receive back pay for the time they did not work during the funding impasse.
“I would say it depends on who we are talking about,” President Donald Trump told reporters inside the Oval Office on Tuesday. “It really depends on who you’re talking about. But for the most part we are going to take care of our people. There are some people that don’t deserve to be taken care of and we are going to take care of them in a different way.”
Axios was first to report about a draft memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget that allegedly suggested that the Government Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA) only allows for backpay but does not guarantee payments.
Trump signed GEFTA during his first term following the historic 35-day government shutdown that ended in 2019.
“This was a Donald Trump law,” Virginia Senator Tim Kaine told reporters on Capitol Hill. “The suggestion that they might now try to stiff people and go back on it, they’ll find themselves in court over it,” he added.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he had read the headline and said this should spark urgency for Democrats.
“I haven’t spoken to the White House about it, but there are some legal analysts who are saying that may not be appropriate or necessary in terms of the law requiring backpay to be provided,” Johnson said.
In a statement, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which is the largest federal employee union in the country responded to the reports calling the Trump administration’s argument an, “…obvious misinterpretation of the law. It is also inconsistent with the Trump administration’s own guidance from mere days ago, which clearly and correctly states that furloughed employees will receive retroactive pay for the time they were out of work as quickly as possible once the shutdown is over.”
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) said he is not buying what he calls a pressure tactic by Republicans.
“This seems to be an effort to leverage the Democrats to agreeing to the deal that they got on the table,” Ivey said. “I think it’s pretty clear that we would fight this in court.”
Without providing many details, Trump said federal layoffs are coming in four or five days if the government shutdown continues.
“We have a lot of things that we’re going to eliminate and permanently eliminate,” he told reporters.
Many government employees will start feeling the effects of the government shutdown this week when they will only receive partial paychecks because they will not be paid for the first few days of October due to the shutdown.
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