WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is extending a two-year pay freeze for federal employees until at least next spring.

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The freeze will stay in effect until a spending plan is passed, but the presidential campaign makes it unlikely that will happen before the start of fiscal 2013 on Oct. 1.

Obama has proposed an across-the-board half-percent pay raise, but Congress would have to enact the pay-raise proposal.

Congress reached a short-term deal before its August recess to fund the government for six months. The administration estimates the two-year pay freeze will save more than $60 billion.

J. David Cox Sr., national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the decision to extend the two-year federal pay freeze "absolutely unwarranted and unjustified."