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.”

  • @postmateDumbass
    1•11 months ago

    The problem is only the wealthy could afford to hold office.

    Does rule by the 1% sound like a good idea?

    Frankly the people advocating to force minimum wage living conditions on congress people are not respecting the problem or must be some of those “accelerationists” that just want everything to fall apart so it can get worse before it gets better.

    I get that (most) people are upset with Do Nothing Congress 2: Insurrectionist Boogaloo, but to replace them with minimum wage rookies and blue blood elites raised to run the world is not a good idea. Its extremely stupid.

    • @pandacoder
      1•11 months ago

      Not that I’m (seriously) advocating for them to go into a dorm, but these people decide their salaries.

      If they were doing their job properly they would have raised it, or better yet they would have established a higher-end apartment-dorm type solution that is paid for by the state and so their paychecks are not used to cover their living expenses in DC (not college freshman standards, more like two bedroom apartments unless they want to pony up part of their paycheck, one for a bed and one for an office).

      They’re not actually doing either of these things though, so I hardly feel bad.