U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney (not pictured) meet within the Oval Office on the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Oct. 7, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
President Donald Trump advised Tuesday that some federal workers who’ve been furloughed through the government shutdown will not obtain back pay after they return to work.
The comment got here hours after the circulation of a draft White House memo arguing that federal staff positioned on unpaid depart are usually not assured back pay.
The memo, first reported by Axios and confirmed to NBC News by the White House, seems to conflict with the Trump administration’s personal latest steering. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in a shutdown guidance sheet issued final month, said definitively that furloughed workers can be paid retroactively as soon as the funding lapse ends.
A federal law, which Trump signed after the final authorities shutdown in 2019, moreover says that furloughed U.S. authorities staff “shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations.”
A White House official informed Axios that the administration’s view is that that regulation doesn’t mechanically cowl furloughed staff’ back pay, and that Congress should particularly acceptable these funds.
Trump, when requested on the White House on Tuesday afternoon about back pay for these workers, stated, “I would say it depends on who we’re talking about.”
The Democrats — whom Trump and Republicans blame for the shutdown that’s now on Day 7 — “have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy,” the president stated within the Oval Office alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“But it really depends on who you’re talking about,” he stated. “For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people.”
Trump added, “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.”
When requested why he stated some workers shouldn’t get their back pay, he stated, “Ask the Democrats that question.”
The administration’s signaling about workers’ back pay has been extensively seen as an try and ratchet up strain on Senate Democrats to vote for Republicans’ proposal for a stopgap invoice that will resume authorities funding at present ranges till late November.
The administration has beforehand warned that the shutdown will quickly result in hundreds of federal workers being completely laid off, reasonably than simply furloughed, as has been the case in previous funding lapses.
Asked Tuesday what number of everlasting jobs are on the chopping block, Trump stated he will be capable to say “in four or five days, if this keeps going on.”
“It’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” he added. “But you’re going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget, actually.”
Democrats have dismissed these threats, arguing that the administration has already been attempting to slash the scale of the federal workforce since Trump took workplace once more in January.
They need any short-term decision to incorporate an extension of enhanced premium tax credit beneath the Affordable Care Act, which are set to run out at yr’s finish. Republicans, who maintain a 53-seat majority within the Senate, want at the very least seven extra votes to beat the chamber’s filibuster.
The administration’s scrutiny about back pay prompted a fiery response from the American Federation of Government Employees, a serious federal workers’ union.
“The frivolous argument that federal employees are not guaranteed backpay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act is an obvious misinterpretation of the law,” AFGE President Everett Kelley stated in an announcement.
“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,” he stated.
“As we’ve said before, the livelihoods of the patriotic Americans serving their country in the federal government are not bargaining chips in a political game,” Kelley stated. “It’s long past time for these attacks on federal employees to stop and for Congress to come together, resolve their differences, and end this shutdown.”