Just over three-fourths of Americans reported that their income is not keeping up with inflation in a recent poll to a poll conducted by CBS News and YouGov. People are struggling to pay their bills in an economy plagued by stagnant wages and higher prices for consumer goods.

Fifty-six percent of Americans believe government spending is causing high inflation which directly affects consumers. But one group of Americans received a holiday boost while most of the country continues to struggle. Joe Biden acted like Santa Claus to one of his largest voter blocs.

From the Daily Caller:
President Joe Biden signed an executive order in December giving federal employees an average of a 5.2% increase in pay, the largest increase since former President Jimmy Carter raised federal salaries by 9.1% in 1980.

Biden’s pay increase for federal bureaucrats will deliver a 4.7% increase across the board. An additional bump averaging 0.5% may be added depending on where the federal employees work. High-cost areas such as San Francisco can lead to an additional 0.9% raise for federal workers.

There is some good in next year’s budget as members of the armed forces will get a pay raise averaging 5.2% in 2024. The pay bump is part of the National Defense Authorization Act which was approved by Congress. By comparison, the pay hike for civilian bureaucrats was solely authorized by Biden’s decree.

A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget stated that the federal government is the nation’s largest employer and “must ensure it has the talent to meet the needs of the American people.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said all American employees working in the private sector saw a 4.5% salary increase between Sept. 2022 and Sept. 2023.

That statistic arguably doesn’t tell the whole story about wages. There were hundreds of thousands of job layoffs during that time and employers throughout the country didn’t necessarily give pay raises the same in previous years.

Under Biden’s watch, inflation grew at 3.1% between Nov. 2022 and Nov. 2023, according to the BLS. Biden’s talent could arguably be the ability to strain the U.S. economy through his policies that contributed to inflation.

This isn’t the first time federal workers have seen a nice pay bump under Biden. Federal employees received a pay bump of 4.6% in 2023, according to Government Executive. Federal workers on average get paid more than people working outside the federal government.

The average pay for federal employees was $98,943 in 2023 with some areas, such as Washinton, D.C., raking in an average of more than $135,000 per year. The average American doesn’t do so well in the real world. The median salary in the United States was $1,118 per week as of October, which totals about $58,000 a year.

People question whether the high pay for federal employees sways them to vote for Democrats. Statistics show that during the 2020 presidential election cycle, federal employees heavily favored Biden. He raised $1.06 million from the bureaucrat crowd between 2019 and October 2020 while Trump raised $743,000.

That trend was like the 2016 election where Hillary Clinton received $1.9 million in donations from federal workers. Trump only received about 5% of federal employee donations.

Key Takeaways:

• Joe Biden signed an executive order giving federal workers a big pay raise.
• The December gift guaranteed higher wages for a huge Biden voting bloc.
• Biden’s pay raise decree is the highest since Carter was president in 1980.

Source: Daily Caller