Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday that federal workers furloughed during the shutdown should receive back pay, but he also raised the prospect that those payments might not be forthcoming.
“I hope that the furloughed workers receive back pay, of course,” Johnson told reporters in the Capitol. “We have some extraordinary Americans who serve the federal government — they serve valiantly and they work hard and they serve in these various agencies doing really important work.”
Yet Johnson also acknowledged a new memo from President Trump’s budget office suggesting that the administration is under no legal obligation to compensate furloughed workers for days lost to the shutdown.
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That memo, from the White House Office of Budget and Management (OMB), adopts a unique reading of the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which Trump adopted during a lengthy shutdown in 2019. That law has been widely interpreted as guaranteeing back pay for furloughed workers, but the OMB is challenging that analysis — a posture designed to put more pressure on Senate Democrats to support a Republican spending bill and reopen the government.
“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.”
Johnson emphasized that he hasn’t examined the legal nuances of the OMB’s rendition, nor has he spoken to the White House about it. The Speaker said Trump, who is leaning heavily on the shutdown to fire federal workers, doesn’t want pay withheld from furloughed workers.
“He and I have talked about this personally — he doesn’t want people to go without pay,” Johnson said.
The Speaker urged Senate Democrats, particularly Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), to drop their opposition to the Republicans’ continuing resolution, arguing that no talks on other policy positions can happen before then.
“I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about [withholding backpay]. But there are legal analysts who think that that is not something that government should do,” he said. “If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here.”