He's not alone: AOC and others have argued lawmakers should be paid more in order to protect against corruption and make the job more accessible.

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.”

  • @CharlesDarwinEnglish
    8•1 year ago

    Or maybe they start living within their means. Isn’t that what they tell everyone else - they tell people they are eating too much avocado toast, paying for Netflix, have smartphones and a large screen TV…and they are telling people that they cannot live on 174K.

    They don’t have wealth? Guess what? Most of us don’t. And a lot of us work a metric ton more hours than these clowns do.