The highest paying job in state politics is the governor of Pennsylvania: $187,818 a year. The lowest? State representative in New Hampshire: Just $100 a year.
Unsurprisingly, wages for state politicians vary a lot across the country. Chris Kolmar at Zippia put himself through the long slog of finding how much every governor and state representative in the country is paid, then adjusting wages for the cost of living.
Politicians seem to get paid more in traditionally Democratic states, such as California and New York. Politicians seem to get paid less in traditionally Republican states, like in the Great Plains states. Remember, that’s after adjusting for the cost-of-living in those states.
There are good arguments for and against paying state legislators high wages. In theory, a higher salary ensures individuals who don’t have large bank accounts or who have large families can still run for office, earn a decent living if they win and then address the needs of similar people while they’re in office. On the other hand, you could argue that legislators should be public servants who volunteer to do the work, rather than people who do it just for the paycheck.
Much of the pay differences by state have to do with the type of legislature — some legislatures are full-time while others are part-time, where legislators are expected to have a separate job on the side. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 10 states have full-time legislatures, three of which are states where legislatures are “well paid” with “large staff.” Twenty-four states have a hybrid model that isn’t quite full-time or part-time. The remaining 16 states are part-time, six of which have low pay and small staffs.
Still, even where states have a full-time legislature, legislators are expected to work only about 82 percent of the time a normal full-time worker would, and that includes time the legislator would spend on campaigns. The same figure for part-time legislators is 54 percent.
Click here for Kolmar’s interactive map with adjusted wages for governors and state representatives in every state.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
