Congressional compensation can’t compete with the private sector to attract civic-minded talent.
Even in ages not defined by a simmering populist rage, congressional lawmakers have found it difficult to give themselves a raise. The obvious disincentives explain why it’s been 15 years since Congress gave itself a pay hike — allowing federal judges and even some of their own staff’s salaries to eclipse their own. But Speaker Mike Johnson is aiming to remedy that in an upcoming vote over a continuing resolution to fund the government into next year.
“It’s complicated, but Congress has proactively blocked lawmakers from getting a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) since 2009,” Punchbowl reported on Wednesday. “This was done by including language in spending bills specifically preventing such pay increases, although other federal employees get them.” The new CR amends language that prohibited federal lawmakers from giving themselves a pay hike. The GOP-led Congress will try to use that leeway to bake automatic COLA adjustments into members’ salaries.
Good for them. They should.
The reflexive, thoughtless hostility toward even the notion that lawmakers should earn a salary commensurate with their status is, nevertheless, understandable. Members of Congress currently earn $174,000 per annum — well beyond the median American income. Congress cannot even pass a budget, much less balance one. Why should the fat cats in Washington make even more money when the people they represent are struggling?
Demagoguing a congressional pay hike to death is child’s play for even the clumsiest politician. Indeed, some enterprising agitators even argue that lawmakers should take a pay cut, if only so Congress can get reacquainted with the people they represent by experiencing some of their hardships themselves. The logic here, such as it is, is contemptuous of our shared reality.
If Congress is out of touch, that problem won’t be remedied by increasing the incentives for both parties to recruit independently wealthy candidates — both so they might self-fund their campaigns and so they will be immune from the incentives to make more money in the private sector. If Congress is dysfunctional, it won’t be made more efficient if it continues to repel the best and brightest, leaving only incompetent ladder-climbers and narcissistic would-be celebrities to populate its chambers. If Congress is unresponsive to its constituents’ demands, it won’t become more sensitive by ensuring the legislature is little more than a brief waystation along the path to lucrative careers on K Street.
We can indulge the idealized fantasy of a legislature populated with noble patricians who, like Cincinnatus himself, put their families through hell only to briefly serve the public for little personal reward before returning to their plowshares. That indulgence has left us with a Congress replete with Neros.
Even with the stipends that reimburse members for lodging, travel, and meal expenses (a suboptimal and controversial substitute for salaried compensation), maintaining two residences — one in one of America’s most expensive cities and another back home — is a financial struggle. It’s bad enough that congressional compensation cannot compete with the private sector to attract civic-minded talent. Worse, Congress cannot even compete with the rest of the federal government.
“You can’t have the executive branch and the judicial branch on a higher pay scale than Congress,” said outgoing Representative Patrick McHenry, one of the good ones who did not seek reelection this year. “That is absurd, and really stupid for Congress to disadvantage ourselves in this game of checks and balances.” The median salary for House staffers in 2023 was just $72,000, up from $59,600 in 2022. That explains the high turnover rate among staffers, who are expected to wield vast arcane knowledge about their institution and the country they’re helping govern.
Pay hikes across the board for Congress aren’t a panacea, but they would chip away at what David Brooks called “status–income disequilibrium” — a phenomenon that is particularly acute in Washington. But we’re trapped in a doom loop in which Congress no longer attracts leaders, and those who do go into public service lack the courage to buck the trite populism that prevents them from increasing the financial rewards for serving their country. We shouldn’t expect that to change anytime soon.