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.”
We should raise their salaries anyway to a point where it becomes hard to entice them with any more wealth.
We should actually lower their wages so we actually get people in those positions who want to do the job simply to make the country better. We need politicians who don’t care about personal wealth at all, but I realize that’s wishful thinking.
The kind of people that make the best leaders normally don’t want to lead, sadly.