OBAMA ASKS FEDERAL WORKERS TO SACRIFICE — By 0.4 percent! “Citing the current economic recession — and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks eight years ago — President Obama says he will use emergency powers to cut the programmed across-the-board January increase in federal employees’ pay from 2.4 percent to 2.0 percent, according to a letter he sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday.” Given that lots of people in the private sector — and even in state and municipal goverments — are facing no raise at all, or actual pay cuts, I don’t think this will impress many folks out there.

UPDATE: A federal employee reader who asks that I not use his name writes: “Also note — that 2.0% is just the base increase. Once subjected to locality adjustments (all of them adjusted upward), that 2.0% becomes more like 3.5%. Last year the 2.9% increase in the general schedule ended up being in the neighborhood of a 4.2% increase for most working in the northeast (D.C included).”