Rank-and-file members of both the House and Senate are paid $174,000 a year.
That probably seems like a decent amount of money, and it is: The median household income in 2022 was $74,580, according to the US Census.
But consider that members of Congress generally have to maintain two residences — one in Washington, DC, and one in their home state — and that they haven’t gotten a raise since 2009.
Inflation, meanwhile, has eaten away at the value of that salary over time: If lawmakers’ salaries had kept pace with inflation, they would be paid over $250,000 today.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican who served as the interim speaker of the House following Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, told The Dispatch that congressional pay needed to be raised in order to attract “credible people to run for office.”
Under paying is a good way to make sure that the only people who run for office have financial incentives outside of the salary. Ie: it makes corruption and insider trading more likely.
I would say we should pay them enough to have a solidly comfortable upper middle class lifestyle in perpetuity, and force them to relinquish all prior assets and holdings beside their family home/vehicles. Ideally, these would be highly respected community members and making the comfortable would be commendable. However, they should not be able to leverage their position for personal gain. That should be true after their tenure as well. They should be given a sizeable pension, but any earning related to their office should be forfeit to an approved non-profit. That means speaking engagements and book deals should not be a source of income.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t be paid well, just that the multiplier should be 1. There’s another number that could be adjusted upward.