this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
514 points (96.6% liked)

politics

19150 readers
1592 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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."

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Pay them more, ban lobbying and PACs.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

Oh shucks a government job that doesn't pay very well.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

$174k is literally 2.41x what I make. Fuck off congress.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

While I do agree that’s really not enough anymore, given engineering (for example) salary in high cost of living areas and I’d support an increase …

  • it’s up to Congress to give their successors a raise
  • given the Clarence Thomas issue, we can see that no amount of pay will be enough for some of them, given lack of ethics standards
  • we keep seeing articles about politicians being wealthy and minimal conflict of interest standards, so let’s see the evidence that salary is a meaningful part of their pay

Maybe I’m just frustrated having to go through annual ethics training for my company. Why am I, as an individual contributor, held to so much higher an ethics standard than people who make decisions for the future of our entire country? Why do I need to watch out go for insider trading when I don’t have insider information, compared to people with the access of Congress? Why is my standard for conflict of interest so much higher than someone who can actually take advantage? Heck, why am I held to so much higher a standard on discrimination and harassment, than people with so much power over their victims?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

Learn to code.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Maybe they should have thought of that at some point in the last 44 years instead of destroying the socioeconomic mobility of the lower- and middle-class in the country. Now the leopard is eating their face, too, and it’s extremely appropriate.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

How much are they making on the stock market?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Inflation hits everyone hard

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Sir, please get fucked and die. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

If only they understood the irony

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

"Most of us don't have wealth"

Uh. Pretty sure that's not true.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

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.

2x74,580 is 149,160 174,000 - 149,160 is 24,840 on top of twice the median 2022 census numbers.

Salaries havent changed in 20 years?

Can someone find how how many times their salaries did increase well beyond the rate of inflation?

How many years does the average rank and file member of the rank and file serve in office.

Also we are comparing a single persons salary to a household income, which shoud be taken into acount. How many households earning that 74,580 are doing it with a single income earner? If even half of those are not single individuals then compared to the average household income, the rank and file members of congress and the senate are effectively earning the equivalent of double their salary, or should be compared to other individuals earning less than $37,281 or approximately 17.92 per hour

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Like most the problems in America, it's all about housing.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

You're more than welcome to suck on Deez nuts and see what you can get

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Neither do we.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

It's almost like being a public servant isn't intended to make you wealthy. $174k per Congressperson is more than double the average household income, so they can make it work.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Then go work for private sector.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Oh the poor old things. Imagine not getting a raise since 2009!! All the minimum wage workers can imagine just that, because minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009, either. And a full time minimum wage job is going to provide a helluva less income than $174K.

I'm so tired of these privileged blowhards griping and complaining about how hard they have it while actively refusing to actually improve the lives of their constituents.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

I've heard we can't pay teachers anymore because it's already unfair they're getting paid when they don't work during the summers

These guys get paid more and work less. So sorry. Can't do it.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›