House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday the Trump administration has no legal basis for refusing back pay to furloughed federal workers, vowing that Democrats will fight to ensure those payments are made.
“The law is clear: Every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay. Period. Full stop,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “The law is clear, and we will make sure that that law is followed.”
A day earlier, the White House Office of Budget and Management (OMB) issued a memo suggesting the government is under no obligation to pay federal workers who are furloughed during the shutdown. That position marks a sharp departure from shutdowns of years past, when furloughed employees have received back pay. And Democrats like Jeffries say it violates a federal law, the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which Trump adopted during the record-breaking shutdown of 2019.
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The OMB’s move is designed to put more pressure on Senate Democrats to support a short-term GOP spending bill, which failed on the Senate floor for the fifth time on Monday.
Amid the impasse, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) weighed in on the OMB memo, saying he wants federal workers to receive back pay through the shutdown, but suggested those payments could be withheld — if the White House makes that determination.
“It is true that in previous shutdowns, many or most of them have been paid for the time that they were furloughed,” Johnson said. “But there are some legal analysts who are saying that that may not be appropriate or necessary, in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided.”
Trump also commented on the issue Tuesday from the Oval Office, suggesting that some federal employees would receive back pay while others would not. He did not say what gauge the administration would use to make that determination.
“For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” Trump said. “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of. And we’ll take care of them in a different way.”