Federal Employee Return to Work Act
Official title: To prohibit certain telework employees from receiving certain annual adjustments to pay schedules, and for other purposes.
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Referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Federal Employee Return to Work Act
This bill prohibits providing certain annual or locality-based pay increases to teleworking federal employees.
Currently, federal law mandates annual adjustments to General Schedule (GS) pay rates according to (1) a formula based on the annual percentage change in the Employment Cost Index (a measure of labor costs in the private sector); and (2) the difference between public and private sector pay rates in an employee's locality, if that difference exceeds 5%. For example, in 2025, the default annual rate of pay for a GS-7 (step 1) employee is $49,960; the adjusted annual rate of pay for a GS-7 (step 1) employee in the locality pay area that includes Washington, DC, is $57,164.
The bill makes executive agency employees who telework at least one day each week (or, in the case of an alternative work schedule, 20% or more each week) ineligible for these payments.
The bill is effective on the first day of the fiscal year beginning after the bill's enactment.
- Introduced in House Formatted Text PDF Formatted XML
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
Bodies those filers lobbied
- Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
- Energy, Dept of
- Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
- Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board
- Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
- General Services Administration (GSA)
- Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS)
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 236: Federal Employee Return to Work Act. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-236/
"H.R. 236: Federal Employee Return to Work Act." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-236/.
H.R. 236, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-236/.
[H.R. 236: Federal Employee Return to Work Act](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-236/)