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I've always thought it should be tied to median wage in their state, so they only prosper if the people in their own state prosper. Gives them incentive to take care of their voters, as they should be doing anyway.
DC is not a state but the median wage in the area is over 6 figures.
Members of Congress typically are required to own a home in the district/state they represent. But they also have to live in DC, one of the highest cost of living urban areas in the world.
They should be able to live upper middle class lives in the nation’s capital based on the salary they’re entitled to by law. Not doing this breeds ground for corruption. If Congress had to rely on other means to support themselves then the only people who will run for Congress are the wealthy, and/or the corrupt. That gets bad fast.
So I’m fine with them making a decent upper middle DC wage, so long as there are proper oversight mechanisms in place for them, and transparency into their legislation. If they’re doing good work for the American people, they should be paid well. If they’re not, it should be obvious that they’re failing the public.
What I want are competent legislators who have the best outcomes for the American people in mind when they pass laws. That’s how you prevent misbehavior like what’s going on in the white house right now.
Seems like we could make a 600 unit development of condos near to the capital furnished for congressmen for while they hold the office. Having some place to live while in the capital doesn't seem like an overly challenging problem to solve.
I think you're forgetting that on top of base pay, they also have an expense account that covers office leases, travel expenses, and staff salaries, plus they receive 34k of reimbursement for living expenses in DC. That's enough to cover a decent DC apartment plus a year of groceries for 1 person.
I used to agree with the "pay them enough to combat corruption" argument, but with how rampant and blatant corruption has gotten in congress anyway, clearly what we've been doing hasn't done any better.
Personally I think that there should be government provided basic necessities (food, lodging, etc.) And anything above and beyond that should be on them. Medical insurance should be the exact same as the average American's medicare, no better (again, unless paid for themselves).
Corruption will seep in no matter how much we pay them, which is why we voters are supposed to care enough to do something if our representative is found to be corrupt.
This falls apart because Congressional representatives are only paid $174,000 a year. That's basically nothing and there have been plenty of stories of representative not even being able to afford a place to live in DC to do their job.
I live in the nation's 40th largest city and the pay is a $6,250 annual stipend. Guess who applies? Independently wealthy and financially secure people and no one else. Guess where policy goes? Guess who's regularly jockeying for "conflict of interest of the week"? We need to pay our politicians the same as anyone else: a fair, thriving wage.
Only?! That's 174k, plus an expense account that covers travel, office leases, and staff salaries, plus up to 34k in reimbursement for expenses in DC, which is enough to cover an average DC apartment plus a year's groceries for 1 person for a year.
If you can't live on that, that's a problem with you and your lifestyle, not the pay.
I'd be happy to take that job, and I'm certainly not independently wealthy. I could live very comfortably on that. Your argument doesn't hold any water.
You haven't presented an argument that agrees with reality in the slightest considering the scope and responsibilities of the job. Get outta here with that tripe.
The sort of people who think the responsibilities are too much and are only in it for the money are exactly the people we don't want in office. This isn't a CEO position. It's public service.
Make it the national median, then they aren't encouraged to poach other states, but instead to invest in the poorest areas, since that will be the easiest way to get the median up.
I understand why this would be attractive, but it goes against the rational behind representative government. A senator from Virginia represents Virginians and isn't responsible for voters in California. Legislators shouldn't be incentivized to disregard their own voters in favor of people across the country.
That's what the election is for. If the home district doesn't find the representative satisfactory, they can oust them in the next election. Or at least they could if we had an electoral system that worked.
?? The median ignores the poorest. The easiest way would be to take care of the middle, since that's by definition where the median is. You can completely ignore the bottom 49% or even have them get poorer and still raise the median. If you want them to focus on the poorest, you'd need to have it pegged to a much lower percentile, even if you don’t give them the same wage. If the 10th percentile increases by 5%, so does whatever the senator is making.
This is completely ignoring how nonsensical it would be to tie a New York senator's salary to a state he has zero control over.
In order to believe that, you'd have to think that a) people can only have one goal at a time, and b) every cares about pay above all else. Like, I know devil's advocate is in your name, but I'd expect better critical thinking skills.
It’s not, example Trump, Bushes, and FDR were the only presidents to grow up rich the last 80 yrs. Bill Clinton grew up close to poverty. 2. How would being tied to the median make any sense, especially if you want to pay people from different states different salaries. so someone who is in a leadership role and does a lot more work than there colleagues could get paid less because they are from a poorer state. 3. The system now isn’t broken.
What does that have to do with anything? Yeah, if I get elected my fifth grade paper route totally has bearing on what members of congress should get paid.
In Arkansas yeah. Pres was his first and only federal position. Are you really arguing that the state government salary of a former president has some relationship to the pay of members of congress? I don't know why you even brought up Bill when he never served in federal congress, which is what this post was discussing.
Most these people already have enough money that they could retire and never worry about money ever again, but when your greed is insatiable there's no such thing as enough.
Average net worth of a member of congress is just over a million dollars. Average age is 58. 1 million at 58 is not enough to money to retire on and never worry about money again.
They do get a good pension and healthcare. They do have career paths after congress.
All this talk of congressional salary is meaningless populism. Most congressmen don’t make the bulk of their money from their salary, and by reducing it, you’d only be encouraging illegal activity, and it would only disadvantage the less wealthy ones anyway, which is the opposite of what you want to happen. It wouldn’t fix anything.
Agreed. They should increase congressional salary and ban stock trading of Congress members, white house officials and their families. They should all be forced to sell everything and move their money into the same basic index fund.
Trump telling the public the war will be over very soon and then quietly buying a bunch of oil and weapon stocks while the price is low because of the statement he just made is some serious market manipulation insider trading bullshit. And most of Congress pulls similar if slightly less egregious insider trading bullshit.
Most people that high up in politics make plenty of money outside of their salary. This just makes it harder for the few politicians who arent already rich to make it there.
This. I would bet my money that none of the house or senate members need the salary to survive. I would go to the level and say job is a volunteer job. No salary.
Kinda feel like the most honest and worthy people in congress are the ones that need their check. The shitbags are the ones that 12k a month is a meaningless amount of money
I would rather compensate them well enough that lobbyists and bribery would be less tempting, but also to require that they report all income (going back at least a decade), investments, and disbursements, regardless of type or location; submit to regular auditing; and punish non-compliance or violation of these related statutes with immediate removal from office and forfeiture of the right to ever hold public office going forward. Also, even if we don't reform the executive ability to pardon, it doesn't undo these consequences.
I would extend this compliance requirement to executive appointees as well, even for faux departments like DOGE.
I think the general argument against this is that it would make these positions even more skewed towards the independently wealthy than they already are. Nobody without extreme wealth would be able to survive on their wages and thus would be priced out completely. The incentive structure already favors the wealthy, but this would basically lock Congress in as an aristocracy across the board. Capturing the institution in this way would also give senators and representatives even less incentive to do things that increase minimum/median wages, because it would only increase their future competition.
Congressional salaries should be supplemented by a housing allowance like military service members, so they can afford duel residences. No insider trading, no bribes and no billionaire sugar daddies.
Term limits and age limits. We need turnover and younger members, not people that have to be wheeled onto the floor…
But then they will definitely need to do insider trading because obviously as said in a live interview these folks can’t even make it on their current salaries, and need to trade stocks on the side.
Their yearly salary should be equal to 9000 x the hourly minimum wage. That seems very generous. Especially since they have so many other free perks and benefits.
Singapore went the other way. In order to attract the best possible, you have to incentivize it.
If you had a top scientist, lawyer, manager or doctor, or even economist, you can either: be a congressman and make 200,000k per year. Or go to private sector and make 1 million+, if not 5,10,20 etc.
If you want the best. You have to pay the best.
I think we should be paying Congressman 1.5 million, Senate should 2.5 million
It's the same reason why non-profit organizations like the American Red Cross often pay wages that are competitive with the private sector. If they're going to carry out their mission effectively, they need the best.
I mean they could be like military wages and be tied to Consumer Price Index energy year and just raise it by the 2-4% automatically based on that amount. And then outlaw insider training and demand divestment from all other sources of market tied income or income that could be impacted by their laws and force complete transparency on all finances for law makers. But that being reasonable and you can't corrupt the system that way.
$174k is roughly a top 10% salary in this country. We want to attract top 1% talent and we should pay top 1% salary for it - roughly $500k today. There is no other role in this country where $500k is considered controversial for representing 500,000 people.
It's a tough job and it's only getting harder. The hours and the travel, sure. But also every word you say can and will be taken out of context and you'll need to defend them without notice. Families are no longer off limits from public scrutiny. Media, social and traditional, needs to be curated. Finding common ground with the opposite party is nearly impossible. The body of law, the body of regulations, the body of government, and the respective state laws and government, have grown exponentially - as well as international equivalents. It's an extremely complex system of systems that cannot be learned quickly. We expect more from our lawmakers than ever before.
So on top of the pay, we should increase the number of staffers, which has been locked for the house for past 50/+ years. We should expand the house to reduce the number of people each rep is responsible for.
WE ALSO NEED REFORM. Wherever possible, that reform should be based on dynamic standards: age limits tied to a multiplier of retirement age, say 62 x 1.25; pay tied to top 1% state salary; and office allowances toed to state average equivalents. There should be 12 year term limits in a role - including supreme court justice, and then you have to move on. Not necessarily out of government, but out of that role. Get nominated for a cabinet position, appointed as an ambassador, go to state politics, or even go local. You can't stay in that representative position, but it is a big, complicated government system and we should encourage a portion of people to bounce around inside it.
Oh, and you can only trade government ETFs, which are available in all government retirement plans. And no corporate double-dipping - get off that board and don't retain that other title no matter how honorary you think it is.
You want to incentivize smart, good meaning people to be politicians, ideally.
Tying salaries to anything other than an existing decent standard of living incentivizes more corruption, not less, by only allowing those with existing wealth to consider running. These are the people who own businesses and are directly incentivized to keep standards of living low while pursuing backroom deals for their industry.
Being one of the 535 most important people in the country should be a promotion for basically everyone, not a demotion. Realistically, they can't influence the "median salary" nearly as much as they can influence the standard of living, so anyone trying to give themselves a raise by raising the median salary is probably doing something wrong.
Using minimum wage as a multiplier is an even worse idea, as it directly prioritizes making policy changes impacting the entire country based on personal gain rather than analysis. Raising minimum wage should be done because its a good idea, not because senators can't afford to maintain a residence in one of the highest cost of living cities in the country.
> You want to incentivize smart, good meaning people to be politicians, idealy.
Well smart, good-meaning people dont necessarily tie their good actions to money.
Economics is more than financial incentivization, as it uses money as a form of valuation. Fact is, if we applied the actual value of many representatives in Congress, they would likely be worth minimum wage.
There's a difference between pursuing a career to make a difference but still wanting to be compensated appropriately and literally volunteering all of your time your whole life.
Congress is not supposed to be a career. It is actually intended to be a part time job. Thats why they historically and currently get so much time off.
You’d get elected, break during seasons to harvest crops or go work your normal job, then go back to Congress and do that stuff. Then after your appointment you’d go back to being a normal citizen.
This even was the case for Presidents. Politicians were not supposed to be a special exceptional class.
That ideal unraveled rather quickly due to the appeal of weilding political power and the means of the rich to influence DC.
Whatever they intended 250 years ago, it quickly became what it is today. The founders intended a lot of things, I think considering congress a full time job would be at the bottom of reasons they'd be offended at the current state of things.
Why do people talk about minimum wage like the states can’t change it themselves? poorer states can’t afford $15 an hour but richer ones can afford $20.
There’s a federal minimum wage too. I’m suggesting that if the senate or house want an increase, why not tie that increase to the percentage growth of the federal minimum wage. OR if you want to talk state minimum wages, why not let states decide how much they pay their representatives?
All the already-rich people who don’t care about the salary won’t care about raising the minimum wage, and ultimately it’ll get to the point where only rich people can realistically do the job.
Yeah , only rich people will work at restaurants, landscaping, warehouse jobs, delivery, garbage disposal, plumbing, electricians, construction, house/apartment building, parks, roadkill service , emt/fireman, life guards, roofing, couriers, IT, receptionist, call support, Need I go on?
If the minimum wage doesn’t get raised, which means that the salary will go down and down on an inflation-adjusted basis, all those jobs will pay much better than Congressman, certainly on an hourly basis given its way more than a 40-hour-per-week job.
There’s also the point that Congresspeople have a lot of power, which means that corruption is a thing - if you don’t pay people enough to justify them working there, they’ll look to get it some other way. The job is wildly underpaid right now given its enormous time and travel commitments and responsibilities.
I’m not trying to solve for everything, I’m just asking “why not”?
If your response implies “cause then the senate and house would agree to $1 per year and effectively abolish the minimum wage” then I get the comment and argument.
Really should set the senator salary to vary by the state minimum wage then. People hate to admit it but part of the problem is that while this salary makes you richish in Mississippi, if you have the talent and skills to do the job for NY, then you're taking a pay cut and losing job security to do it. You're also making enemies for life and losing your privacy. You have to be a bit crazy and/or independently wealthy to want the job. No wonder why we end up with a lot of power hungry narcissists or empty suit shills that couldn't make these salaries privately.
A seat in Congress was designed to be a temporary post of public service—a brief period to serve your country before moving on to bigger and better things in the private sector.
We shouldn’t be increasing Congressional pay to make a temporary position more comfortable. When you increase the financial reward for a public service post, you turn a civic duty into a permanent career, encouraging politicians to cling to power instead of striving for real achievement in the free market.
If politicians want to earn more, they should do what every other American does: work hard, complete their service, and move up and out into the private sector. We don't need to fund career politicians; we need to encourage them to move on.
If public service posts have no financial reward, they can only be done by rich people who don’t need a salary, and those people will still be looking for a financial reward, just not a salary. You would absolutely rather have people treating it as the serious, full time professional position that it is rather than an opportunity to direct money to friends.
Agreed. If only rich people can maintain 2 residences (and DC is very HCOL) then we are pricing out the middle and working classes from representing the 95% of us who need them in office. The salary needs to increase and then be tied to SSA increases and left alone.
One senate term is 6 years. Realistically you need some who are careerists and expert politicians, otherwise you risk a revolving door of incompetence. Obviously some stay way too long and are way too old though. A mandatory retirement age and maybe a cap of 4 terms for senate and 10 for house (20 years) would be much more reasonable
This is such poor logic that it’s hard to know where to begin. Without fair and competitive compensation, the only people who would even think about doing this kind of job are the folks who are so wealthy that they do not need to work at all. That’s not the kind of thing we want to reinforce any more than the system already does.
Yeah. The person you replied to hasn’t even begun to think through the consequences. They’re just following blind, angry populist sentiments that feel good.
Honestly I would rather pay them each a lot (500k a year or something) with the stipulation that they cannot have any other income. No speaking engagements, no capital gains from stock sales, no equity in a private company, no rental income etc. Force our representatives to divest from anything that might compromise them.
174k is good for a small city, but if you’re a rep from a major city and have to keep an apartment in DC as well… I would imagine it gets difficult to stay focused. Personally I would start looking for other forms of income as well.
I think it needs to be set at top 10%, but remove the investing in ind. stocks. There needs to be incentive to go to public service, but not to the tune of stock trading on insider info
Their salaries are generally irrelevant to their ability to financially capitalize on their political power. As an example, look at the president.. who loves to talk about “not accepting a salary”.. but has also seen his net worth triple in the last 2 years, accumulating an additional 4b of wealth.
Salary theatre for our politicians s just putting lipstick on a pig. Real meaningful changes to their incentive structure would need to involve regulating other sources of income.. but good luck convincing the parasite class to voting against their own wallets
Just pay them 1-3,000,000/year CPI adjusted and ban them and their immediate spouse from receiving gifts (or any other income), including travel, without remitting 10x their value to the treasury.
The penalty for violating these promises has to be… severe. Very severe.
Would cost like $1,000,000,000/year, but even cutting 1-2% of fraud and grift would make that well worth it.
It doesn't fix any problem and all it does is make it hard for working class people to hold office. Period. Wage caps on Congress are a red herring. A waste of time. A diversion.
We should make public housing for them, a congressional village. Then they can't complain they need money to move to DC. There are only a few hundred families, for the cost of their housing we could build a new housing area
Because then you'd only have super wealthy people running for Congress. I'd rather have a bartender from NYC than a hedge fund manager from Citadel in politics.
Everyone keeps proposing these nonsensical punishments for politicians, but fail to realize it'd literally only hurt like 10-15 members, a majority of whom probably actually want to help society become better. Not just enrich themselves.
So if your goal is to get the 80% wealthy Congressional members up to 100% wealthy Congressional members, this isn't it.
I'm personally tired of politicians pretending they know the value of a dollar. They've literally become the $10 banana meme at this point.
Economics-ModTeam | an hour ago
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Nanerpoodin | 3 hours ago
I've always thought it should be tied to median wage in their state, so they only prosper if the people in their own state prosper. Gives them incentive to take care of their voters, as they should be doing anyway.
[OP] Ruby-is-a-potato | 3 hours ago
I like this thought process too.
wbruce098 | 2 hours ago
DC is not a state but the median wage in the area is over 6 figures.
Members of Congress typically are required to own a home in the district/state they represent. But they also have to live in DC, one of the highest cost of living urban areas in the world.
They should be able to live upper middle class lives in the nation’s capital based on the salary they’re entitled to by law. Not doing this breeds ground for corruption. If Congress had to rely on other means to support themselves then the only people who will run for Congress are the wealthy, and/or the corrupt. That gets bad fast.
So I’m fine with them making a decent upper middle DC wage, so long as there are proper oversight mechanisms in place for them, and transparency into their legislation. If they’re doing good work for the American people, they should be paid well. If they’re not, it should be obvious that they’re failing the public.
What I want are competent legislators who have the best outcomes for the American people in mind when they pass laws. That’s how you prevent misbehavior like what’s going on in the white house right now.
flyingtiger188 | 2 hours ago
Seems like we could make a 600 unit development of condos near to the capital furnished for congressmen for while they hold the office. Having some place to live while in the capital doesn't seem like an overly challenging problem to solve.
ptfc1975 | 40 minutes ago
For sure! That combined with maybe covering travel expenses? Problem solved.
World-Revolution724 | 2 hours ago
It seems many (most?) legislators are already independently wealthy and corrupt. That's why and how they got into their position of power.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
I think you're forgetting that on top of base pay, they also have an expense account that covers office leases, travel expenses, and staff salaries, plus they receive 34k of reimbursement for living expenses in DC. That's enough to cover a decent DC apartment plus a year of groceries for 1 person.
Fluffy-Rope-8719 | 2 hours ago
I used to agree with the "pay them enough to combat corruption" argument, but with how rampant and blatant corruption has gotten in congress anyway, clearly what we've been doing hasn't done any better.
Personally I think that there should be government provided basic necessities (food, lodging, etc.) And anything above and beyond that should be on them. Medical insurance should be the exact same as the average American's medicare, no better (again, unless paid for themselves).
Corruption will seep in no matter how much we pay them, which is why we voters are supposed to care enough to do something if our representative is found to be corrupt.
NtheLegend | 2 hours ago
This falls apart because Congressional representatives are only paid $174,000 a year. That's basically nothing and there have been plenty of stories of representative not even being able to afford a place to live in DC to do their job.
I live in the nation's 40th largest city and the pay is a $6,250 annual stipend. Guess who applies? Independently wealthy and financially secure people and no one else. Guess where policy goes? Guess who's regularly jockeying for "conflict of interest of the week"? We need to pay our politicians the same as anyone else: a fair, thriving wage.
Nanerpoodin | an hour ago
Only?! That's 174k, plus an expense account that covers travel, office leases, and staff salaries, plus up to 34k in reimbursement for expenses in DC, which is enough to cover an average DC apartment plus a year's groceries for 1 person for a year.
If you can't live on that, that's a problem with you and your lifestyle, not the pay.
NtheLegend | an hour ago
Yes, only. That's "local bank manager" pay. I have county commissioners that are paid almost that much for a fraction of the responsibility.
Nanerpoodin | an hour ago
I'd be happy to take that job, and I'm certainly not independently wealthy. I could live very comfortably on that. Your argument doesn't hold any water.
NtheLegend | an hour ago
You haven't presented an argument that agrees with reality in the slightest considering the scope and responsibilities of the job. Get outta here with that tripe.
Nanerpoodin | an hour ago
The sort of people who think the responsibilities are too much and are only in it for the money are exactly the people we don't want in office. This isn't a CEO position. It's public service.
ICLazeru | 3 hours ago
Make it the national median, then they aren't encouraged to poach other states, but instead to invest in the poorest areas, since that will be the easiest way to get the median up.
Nanerpoodin | 3 hours ago
I understand why this would be attractive, but it goes against the rational behind representative government. A senator from Virginia represents Virginians and isn't responsible for voters in California. Legislators shouldn't be incentivized to disregard their own voters in favor of people across the country.
SirTiffAlot | 3 hours ago
In the House I would agree it would be better if it were tied to states.
It wouldn't be so bad in the Senate where every state is equally represented.
ICLazeru | 3 hours ago
That's what the election is for. If the home district doesn't find the representative satisfactory, they can oust them in the next election. Or at least they could if we had an electoral system that worked.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
Lol yeah I feel like that last sentence is key.
IPissExcellentThrows | 2 hours ago
?? The median ignores the poorest. The easiest way would be to take care of the middle, since that's by definition where the median is. You can completely ignore the bottom 49% or even have them get poorer and still raise the median. If you want them to focus on the poorest, you'd need to have it pegged to a much lower percentile, even if you don’t give them the same wage. If the 10th percentile increases by 5%, so does whatever the senator is making.
This is completely ignoring how nonsensical it would be to tie a New York senator's salary to a state he has zero control over.
DevilsAdvocate77 | 2 hours ago
No, the easiest way to get the median up is to reduce the number of samples.
This idea that paying our representatives less will somehow end up making us all rich is ridiculous.
Slizzerd | 3 hours ago
Love the idea
DevilsAdvocate77 | 2 hours ago
The role of government should not solely be to increase wages.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
Is that what I said?
DevilsAdvocate77 | 2 hours ago
Yes, it was.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
In order to believe that, you'd have to think that a) people can only have one goal at a time, and b) every cares about pay above all else. Like, I know devil's advocate is in your name, but I'd expect better critical thinking skills.
Seal69dds | 2 hours ago
Then you’ll only get rich people to run for office.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
nein_va | 2 hours ago
It also greatly incentives stuffing pork into bills that are supposed to be nationally advantageous
Seal69dds | an hour ago
Nanerpoodin | an hour ago
The heck are you talking about? Clinton's net worth when elected was around a million dollars, which would be over 2 million in today's money.
Seal69dds | an hour ago
Do you think becoming president was his first job?
Nanerpoodin | an hour ago
What does that have to do with anything? Yeah, if I get elected my fifth grade paper route totally has bearing on what members of congress should get paid.
Seal69dds | 30 minutes ago
Do you really not know he worked in government before becoming president?
Nanerpoodin | 24 minutes ago
In Arkansas yeah. Pres was his first and only federal position. Are you really arguing that the state government salary of a former president has some relationship to the pay of members of congress? I don't know why you even brought up Bill when he never served in federal congress, which is what this post was discussing.
Seal69dds | 15 minutes ago
You said everyone in office is already rich, which is a wrong and dumb statement.
StandSeparate1743 | 3 hours ago
Domedian benefits too. Incentivize treating your employees well
amilo111 | 2 hours ago
Makes sense. This was only rich people will run for congress. Good thinking!
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
amilo111 | 2 hours ago
It isn’t. I do. Pay them a lot. Pay them so that they never have to worry about money again.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
Most these people already have enough money that they could retire and never worry about money ever again, but when your greed is insatiable there's no such thing as enough.
amilo111 | 2 hours ago
Average net worth of a member of congress is just over a million dollars. Average age is 58. 1 million at 58 is not enough to money to retire on and never worry about money again.
They do get a good pension and healthcare. They do have career paths after congress.
You seem wildly uninformed.
PortableGeneration | 3 hours ago
Interesting but I could see California, New York, Florida, and Texas becoming bloodbaths during elections.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
I'm really curious what you mean by this. Is there something I'm overlooking?
UberBlueBear | 2 hours ago
This is exactly how it should work.
Dreadsin | 2 hours ago
For some reason I feel like this is one of those rules that sounds nice in theory, but would somehow be gamed in an unintended way
jimmyfknchoo | 2 hours ago
I wish I had a job where me and my coworkers could vote on our own wages.
Nanerpoodin | 2 hours ago
Lol amen
EchoFieldHorizon | 3 hours ago
All this talk of congressional salary is meaningless populism. Most congressmen don’t make the bulk of their money from their salary, and by reducing it, you’d only be encouraging illegal activity, and it would only disadvantage the less wealthy ones anyway, which is the opposite of what you want to happen. It wouldn’t fix anything.
The_Frostweaver | 2 hours ago
Agreed. They should increase congressional salary and ban stock trading of Congress members, white house officials and their families. They should all be forced to sell everything and move their money into the same basic index fund.
Trump telling the public the war will be over very soon and then quietly buying a bunch of oil and weapon stocks while the price is low because of the statement he just made is some serious market manipulation insider trading bullshit. And most of Congress pulls similar if slightly less egregious insider trading bullshit.
throwraW2 | 3 hours ago
Most people that high up in politics make plenty of money outside of their salary. This just makes it harder for the few politicians who arent already rich to make it there.
Bhanu5909 | 2 hours ago
This. I would bet my money that none of the house or senate members need the salary to survive. I would go to the level and say job is a volunteer job. No salary.
MGDotA2 | 2 hours ago
This has the unintended consequence of enabling only the already independently wealthy to run for office. We have that issue enough as it is.
Farazod | 2 hours ago
No, not this. You responded the exact opposite of the post.
HalfADozenOfAnother | 3 hours ago
Kinda feel like the most honest and worthy people in congress are the ones that need their check. The shitbags are the ones that 12k a month is a meaningless amount of money
gamehenge_survivor | 2 hours ago
But how many of them actually need it? I’d wager you can count them on one hand after a fireworks accident.
HalfADozenOfAnother | 2 hours ago
I looked at net worth of. Congress. I was surprised to see 150 have a networth less than 1 million.
Clean_Brilliant_8586 | 2 hours ago
I would rather compensate them well enough that lobbyists and bribery would be less tempting, but also to require that they report all income (going back at least a decade), investments, and disbursements, regardless of type or location; submit to regular auditing; and punish non-compliance or violation of these related statutes with immediate removal from office and forfeiture of the right to ever hold public office going forward. Also, even if we don't reform the executive ability to pardon, it doesn't undo these consequences.
I would extend this compliance requirement to executive appointees as well, even for faux departments like DOGE.
Sarnick18 | 2 hours ago
The harder you make politicians lives financially harder the more susceptible they are to bribery.
Now obviously in reality this doesnt matter because there is no accountability for our politicians.
But the system works by
Politicians being well paid for the work they put into our country
Free press and courts holds those in power accountable
If 2 shows us 1 is breaking their oath then we as a people vote them out.
HumanDissentipede | 2 hours ago
I think the general argument against this is that it would make these positions even more skewed towards the independently wealthy than they already are. Nobody without extreme wealth would be able to survive on their wages and thus would be priced out completely. The incentive structure already favors the wealthy, but this would basically lock Congress in as an aristocracy across the board. Capturing the institution in this way would also give senators and representatives even less incentive to do things that increase minimum/median wages, because it would only increase their future competition.
baronvonpennytree | 2 hours ago
Congressional salaries should be supplemented by a housing allowance like military service members, so they can afford duel residences. No insider trading, no bribes and no billionaire sugar daddies.
Term limits and age limits. We need turnover and younger members, not people that have to be wheeled onto the floor…
AstroRanger36 | 2 hours ago
For ALL the same reasons the military/Feds have these things in place.
Flat-Jacket-9606 | 2 hours ago
But then they will definitely need to do insider trading because obviously as said in a live interview these folks can’t even make it on their current salaries, and need to trade stocks on the side.
dkwinsea | 3 hours ago
Their yearly salary should be equal to 9000 x the hourly minimum wage. That seems very generous. Especially since they have so many other free perks and benefits.
seeasea | 2 hours ago
Singapore went the other way. In order to attract the best possible, you have to incentivize it.
If you had a top scientist, lawyer, manager or doctor, or even economist, you can either: be a congressman and make 200,000k per year. Or go to private sector and make 1 million+, if not 5,10,20 etc.
If you want the best. You have to pay the best.
I think we should be paying Congressman 1.5 million, Senate should 2.5 million
AlonnaReese | 2 hours ago
It's the same reason why non-profit organizations like the American Red Cross often pay wages that are competitive with the private sector. If they're going to carry out their mission effectively, they need the best.
Electrifying2017 | 2 hours ago
Sounds good on paper, but it’s only going to affect those on the bottom negatively. The others will keep on taking checks and trading stocks.
WorkReddit1191 | 2 hours ago
I mean they could be like military wages and be tied to Consumer Price Index energy year and just raise it by the 2-4% automatically based on that amount. And then outlaw insider training and demand divestment from all other sources of market tied income or income that could be impacted by their laws and force complete transparency on all finances for law makers. But that being reasonable and you can't corrupt the system that way.
PriorObject6281 | 2 hours ago
$174k is roughly a top 10% salary in this country. We want to attract top 1% talent and we should pay top 1% salary for it - roughly $500k today. There is no other role in this country where $500k is considered controversial for representing 500,000 people.
It's a tough job and it's only getting harder. The hours and the travel, sure. But also every word you say can and will be taken out of context and you'll need to defend them without notice. Families are no longer off limits from public scrutiny. Media, social and traditional, needs to be curated. Finding common ground with the opposite party is nearly impossible. The body of law, the body of regulations, the body of government, and the respective state laws and government, have grown exponentially - as well as international equivalents. It's an extremely complex system of systems that cannot be learned quickly. We expect more from our lawmakers than ever before.
So on top of the pay, we should increase the number of staffers, which has been locked for the house for past 50/+ years. We should expand the house to reduce the number of people each rep is responsible for.
WE ALSO NEED REFORM. Wherever possible, that reform should be based on dynamic standards: age limits tied to a multiplier of retirement age, say 62 x 1.25; pay tied to top 1% state salary; and office allowances toed to state average equivalents. There should be 12 year term limits in a role - including supreme court justice, and then you have to move on. Not necessarily out of government, but out of that role. Get nominated for a cabinet position, appointed as an ambassador, go to state politics, or even go local. You can't stay in that representative position, but it is a big, complicated government system and we should encourage a portion of people to bounce around inside it.
Oh, and you can only trade government ETFs, which are available in all government retirement plans. And no corporate double-dipping - get off that board and don't retain that other title no matter how honorary you think it is.
yawg6669 | an hour ago
"attract top 1% talent"? No, I want representation not some archaic notion of merit based "talent".
PriorObject6281 | 8 minutes ago
What's a modern system of merit?
Sea-Sir2754 | an hour ago
You want to incentivize smart, good meaning people to be politicians, ideally.
Tying salaries to anything other than an existing decent standard of living incentivizes more corruption, not less, by only allowing those with existing wealth to consider running. These are the people who own businesses and are directly incentivized to keep standards of living low while pursuing backroom deals for their industry.
Being one of the 535 most important people in the country should be a promotion for basically everyone, not a demotion. Realistically, they can't influence the "median salary" nearly as much as they can influence the standard of living, so anyone trying to give themselves a raise by raising the median salary is probably doing something wrong.
Using minimum wage as a multiplier is an even worse idea, as it directly prioritizes making policy changes impacting the entire country based on personal gain rather than analysis. Raising minimum wage should be done because its a good idea, not because senators can't afford to maintain a residence in one of the highest cost of living cities in the country.
DingbattheGreat | an hour ago
> You want to incentivize smart, good meaning people to be politicians, idealy.
Well smart, good-meaning people dont necessarily tie their good actions to money.
Economics is more than financial incentivization, as it uses money as a form of valuation. Fact is, if we applied the actual value of many representatives in Congress, they would likely be worth minimum wage.
Sea-Sir2754 | an hour ago
There's a difference between pursuing a career to make a difference but still wanting to be compensated appropriately and literally volunteering all of your time your whole life.
DingbattheGreat | an hour ago
Congress is not supposed to be a career. It is actually intended to be a part time job. Thats why they historically and currently get so much time off.
You’d get elected, break during seasons to harvest crops or go work your normal job, then go back to Congress and do that stuff. Then after your appointment you’d go back to being a normal citizen.
This even was the case for Presidents. Politicians were not supposed to be a special exceptional class.
That ideal unraveled rather quickly due to the appeal of weilding political power and the means of the rich to influence DC.
Sea-Sir2754 | 35 minutes ago
Whatever they intended 250 years ago, it quickly became what it is today. The founders intended a lot of things, I think considering congress a full time job would be at the bottom of reasons they'd be offended at the current state of things.
KittyCatTyper | 3 hours ago
Why do people talk about minimum wage like the states can’t change it themselves? poorer states can’t afford $15 an hour but richer ones can afford $20.
[OP] Ruby-is-a-potato | 3 hours ago
There’s a federal minimum wage too. I’m suggesting that if the senate or house want an increase, why not tie that increase to the percentage growth of the federal minimum wage. OR if you want to talk state minimum wages, why not let states decide how much they pay their representatives?
MisinformedGenius | 3 hours ago
All the already-rich people who don’t care about the salary won’t care about raising the minimum wage, and ultimately it’ll get to the point where only rich people can realistically do the job.
YokoDk | 3 hours ago
Isn't that kind of how it already is though?
Myusername1- | 3 hours ago
Yeah , only rich people will work at restaurants, landscaping, warehouse jobs, delivery, garbage disposal, plumbing, electricians, construction, house/apartment building, parks, roadkill service , emt/fireman, life guards, roofing, couriers, IT, receptionist, call support, Need I go on?
MisinformedGenius | 2 hours ago
If the minimum wage doesn’t get raised, which means that the salary will go down and down on an inflation-adjusted basis, all those jobs will pay much better than Congressman, certainly on an hourly basis given its way more than a 40-hour-per-week job.
There’s also the point that Congresspeople have a lot of power, which means that corruption is a thing - if you don’t pay people enough to justify them working there, they’ll look to get it some other way. The job is wildly underpaid right now given its enormous time and travel commitments and responsibilities.
throwraW2 | 3 hours ago
What difference do you think that would make to politicians who make millions outside of their salary?
[OP] Ruby-is-a-potato | 3 hours ago
I’m not trying to solve for everything, I’m just asking “why not”?
If your response implies “cause then the senate and house would agree to $1 per year and effectively abolish the minimum wage” then I get the comment and argument.
Ihaveasmallwang | 3 hours ago
Because there is this thing called the federal minimum wage that the federal government has the ability to change.
I’m curious what state you think can’t afford it?
odeebee | 3 hours ago
Really should set the senator salary to vary by the state minimum wage then. People hate to admit it but part of the problem is that while this salary makes you richish in Mississippi, if you have the talent and skills to do the job for NY, then you're taking a pay cut and losing job security to do it. You're also making enemies for life and losing your privacy. You have to be a bit crazy and/or independently wealthy to want the job. No wonder why we end up with a lot of power hungry narcissists or empty suit shills that couldn't make these salaries privately.
User-no-relation | 3 hours ago
A seat in Congress was designed to be a temporary post of public service—a brief period to serve your country before moving on to bigger and better things in the private sector.
We shouldn’t be increasing Congressional pay to make a temporary position more comfortable. When you increase the financial reward for a public service post, you turn a civic duty into a permanent career, encouraging politicians to cling to power instead of striving for real achievement in the free market.
If politicians want to earn more, they should do what every other American does: work hard, complete their service, and move up and out into the private sector. We don't need to fund career politicians; we need to encourage them to move on.
MisinformedGenius | 3 hours ago
If public service posts have no financial reward, they can only be done by rich people who don’t need a salary, and those people will still be looking for a financial reward, just not a salary. You would absolutely rather have people treating it as the serious, full time professional position that it is rather than an opportunity to direct money to friends.
Status_Unknowable8 | 2 hours ago
Agreed. If only rich people can maintain 2 residences (and DC is very HCOL) then we are pricing out the middle and working classes from representing the 95% of us who need them in office. The salary needs to increase and then be tied to SSA increases and left alone.
xIllustrious_Passion | 2 hours ago
Why don’t we have some sort of boarding house for our reps in DC? That would fix the two residences issue
Thu66 | 3 hours ago
One senate term is 6 years. Realistically you need some who are careerists and expert politicians, otherwise you risk a revolving door of incompetence. Obviously some stay way too long and are way too old though. A mandatory retirement age and maybe a cap of 4 terms for senate and 10 for house (20 years) would be much more reasonable
[OP] Ruby-is-a-potato | 3 hours ago
Do you think that a minimum wage rate is designed to encourage a career at that level?
I don’t think it is, nor do I think it should be.
HumanDissentipede | 2 hours ago
This is such poor logic that it’s hard to know where to begin. Without fair and competitive compensation, the only people who would even think about doing this kind of job are the folks who are so wealthy that they do not need to work at all. That’s not the kind of thing we want to reinforce any more than the system already does.
EchoFieldHorizon | 2 hours ago
Yeah. The person you replied to hasn’t even begun to think through the consequences. They’re just following blind, angry populist sentiments that feel good.
EchoFieldHorizon | 2 hours ago
This must be your first time thinking through this issue. Do you only want rich people in congress?
hewkii2 | 3 hours ago
Yeah, designed by slave owners
elegantdinnerparty | 2 hours ago
There was no private sector when Congress was designed
PhillyCheese123 | 2 hours ago
Honestly I would rather pay them each a lot (500k a year or something) with the stipulation that they cannot have any other income. No speaking engagements, no capital gains from stock sales, no equity in a private company, no rental income etc. Force our representatives to divest from anything that might compromise them.
174k is good for a small city, but if you’re a rep from a major city and have to keep an apartment in DC as well… I would imagine it gets difficult to stay focused. Personally I would start looking for other forms of income as well.
hairhelmoot | 3 hours ago
I think it needs to be set at top 10%, but remove the investing in ind. stocks. There needs to be incentive to go to public service, but not to the tune of stock trading on insider info
hairhelmoot | 3 hours ago
But absolutely no pay during congressional strikes (as ai call them)
icehole505 | 2 hours ago
Their salaries are generally irrelevant to their ability to financially capitalize on their political power. As an example, look at the president.. who loves to talk about “not accepting a salary”.. but has also seen his net worth triple in the last 2 years, accumulating an additional 4b of wealth.
Salary theatre for our politicians s just putting lipstick on a pig. Real meaningful changes to their incentive structure would need to involve regulating other sources of income.. but good luck convincing the parasite class to voting against their own wallets
DingbattheGreat | an hour ago
I dont know if using the current President is a good example, as he also lost a massive amount of wealth during his first term.
Person_756335846 | 2 hours ago
Just pay them 1-3,000,000/year CPI adjusted and ban them and their immediate spouse from receiving gifts (or any other income), including travel, without remitting 10x their value to the treasury.
The penalty for violating these promises has to be… severe. Very severe.
Would cost like $1,000,000,000/year, but even cutting 1-2% of fraud and grift would make that well worth it.
Robot_Basilisk | 2 hours ago
It doesn't fix any problem and all it does is make it hard for working class people to hold office. Period. Wage caps on Congress are a red herring. A waste of time. A diversion.
personman_76 | an hour ago
We should make public housing for them, a congressional village. Then they can't complain they need money to move to DC. There are only a few hundred families, for the cost of their housing we could build a new housing area
N0rmNormis0n | 3 hours ago
The simplest reason is they’re the ones that have to vote on it and with the exception of a few they’ll never not vote in their own interest
braumbles | 2 hours ago
Because then you'd only have super wealthy people running for Congress. I'd rather have a bartender from NYC than a hedge fund manager from Citadel in politics.
Everyone keeps proposing these nonsensical punishments for politicians, but fail to realize it'd literally only hurt like 10-15 members, a majority of whom probably actually want to help society become better. Not just enrich themselves.
So if your goal is to get the 80% wealthy Congressional members up to 100% wealthy Congressional members, this isn't it.
I'm personally tired of politicians pretending they know the value of a dollar. They've literally become the $10 banana meme at this point.