23,000 federal prison workers are set to take pay cuts up to 25% next month
More than half of the workforce at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons will see their paychecks cut by as much as 25% next month, as the agency seeks to cut costs as it operates under a continuing resolution.
Around 23,000 employees at federal prisons across the country were told verbally at meetings Tuesday that the agency was halving—and at seven prisons ending altogether—retention pay at their facilities. Most prisons that employ retention incentives, which are designed to maintain headcount at understaffed facilities, provide employees with between an extra 10% and 25% of their base pay each paycheck. Employees at the Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn in New York receive 35% retention pay, though that was due in part to a federal judge’s intervention following reports of poor conditions there.
