Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are primed to get their first pay bump since 2009 in the new spending bill. Many of them aren’t happy about it.
Members in competitive districts have long-feared political blowback for voting to give themselves a raise. But language blocking an automatic pay increase that has been included in past government funding bills is absent from the stopgap bill. That legislation, known as a continuing resolution or a CR, is needed to avoid a government shutdown that would kick in on Friday. And some lawmakers are now threatening to vote against it unless language to block a pay raise is restored.
“Members of Congress earn more than 90 percent of Americans. If any of my colleagues can’t afford to live on that income, they should find another line of work,” Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) said in a statement Wednesday morning.
“Mainers can’t wave a wand and give themselves a raise, and Congress shouldn’t either — especially when most voters would tell you our job performance is poor at best. Until the pay freeze is reinstated, I will not vote for this CR,” he added. Some Republican members oppose any pay increase as an emblem of overzealous federal spending.
It’s not the first time this has come up. For 15 years, lawmakers have included language in spending bills and CRs to explicitly ban member pay increases tied to cost of living increases that would otherwise be automatic under a 1989 statute. Other leaders have tried to bring up a pay raise before, but tend to get shouted down by lawmakers wary of political blowback from constituents.
There are vocal advocates on both sides of the aisle for reinstating these automatic bumps. Many cite the high cost of maintaining two residences and say the stagnant pay rate discourages working and middle class candidates from running for Congress.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a longtime champion of the cost of living increase, called the bump “de minimis,” a Latin phrase that means something is too small to be considered or taken into account, and that “we don’t change the law, we’re following the law.”
Hoyer, a former House Democratic leader, acknowledged that some in his caucus are “not happy in some instances” but he expects general unity in voting for the stopgap.
Rank-and-file lawmakers in both chambers earn $174,000 annual salary, with those in leadership earning more. The maximum potential member pay adjustment in January 2025 under the stopgap spending bill would be 3.8 percent, which would result in a salary of $180,600, an increase of $6,600.
The bill would also allow lawmakers to opt out of the Obamacare health insurance marketplaces and use the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The lawmaker mandate was a dramatic element of the fight over passage of the Affordable Care Act on Capitol Hill back in 2009 and 2010, and Republicans have been trying to overturn the transformative health care bill since then. However, the bill does not release congressional staff from the requirement that they seek health insurance on the exchange.
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.