As the deadline arrives to raise the debt ceiling, congressional bickering and posturing has reached a fever pitch. Citizens across the country are reacting to this quibbling with low approval ratings. In a national Rasmussen Reports survey, only 8 percent of likely voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Fifty-two percent rate Congress’ performance as poor.
To make matters worse, the same group of elected officials makes a healthy living at taxpayers’ expense. Members of Congress receive a salary of $174,000 per year, as well as generous fringe benefits that increase their total compensation to $285,000 per year.
Members of Congress are among the highest-paid 5 percent of American workers. Unlike the private sector, where salaries are earned from willing customers in exchange for a product or service, congressional salaries and benefits are taken out of taxpayer’s pockets without any requirement for what Americans receive in return.
The generous pay and benefits Congress has provided for itself are unacceptably high when those who work in virtually all industries in the private sector have seen their wages flatten out, or even cut.
Those who were able to keep their jobs are constantly evaluated by “pay for performance” standards. It is clear that these performance standards are not applied to Congress, as the country is saddled with a $14.3 trillion debt and a $1.5 trillion deficit, and weeks of debt ceiling negotiations have left the nation in the same economic predicament as when the talks began.
Another way to measure congressional salaries is to compare them with the average wages earned by private-sector employees. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an average full-time employee in the United States earns annual pay of $50,875.
This means that members of Congress make 3.4 times more than the average full-time American worker. In addition, on average, legislators in other parts of the developed world receive salaries equal to 2.3 times the average wage of a full-time worker. By these standards, Members of Congress are among the highest-paid legislators in the world.
Finally, the relative disproportionality of congressional pay does not disappear if one compares congressional pay with the pay of more educated private-sector employees.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, private-sector workers holding master’s degrees earned 63 percent more than the average full-time American worker, or about $83,000. Even by this standard, congressional salaries are more than double those paid to well-educated, private-sector workers.
While most taxpayers believe members of Congress should be adequately compensated for their efforts, it is excessive to make them among the best compensated employees in the American work force without holding them responsible for their job performance.
During a weak economic recovery, when unemployment is high and many Americans have had to make do with less, Congress should not be rewarding itself with extravagant salaries and benefits.
Immediate steps must be taken to cut congressional salaries and benefits. For example, reducing legislative salaries to $100,000 would save taxpayers $39 million annually and reassure Americans that sacrifices made during this economic downturn are being shared by everybody, especially members of Congress.
David Williams is president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and MacMillin Slobodien is executive director of Our Generation.
