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.”
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.