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Comment by TigeriusKirk | Hacker News Reader

That's 86th percentile for US household income. They can make do. Welcome to public service.

Members of Congress tend to wind up having to run two households, though, and I'm sure there's a variety of other sorts of expenses that are fairly unusual. Salaries haven't gone up in over a decade, either.

Limiting Congress to people who can independently afford the income/expense hit might not be optimal.

Yes, there's always excuses to "need" higher pay.

86th percentile is more than sufficient for representatives of the people.

If you view public service as requiring sacrifice, perhaps, but if you wish to attract folks you need to at least bring decent pay to the table.

And the second household is necessarily in one of the more expensive real estate markets in the country.

salaries havent gone up because they've opted to decline the increase for themselves.

no one is denying they should be paid for their work we're wish to deny them the right to fuck over working americans to line their pockets.

they can easily pass a bill to fund lodgings for congress critters in DC if they wanted. it'd certainly be cheaper for americans than this corruption.

> salaries havent gone up because they've opted to decline the increase for themselves

Well, sure; why would the wealthy incumbents want to make it easier for new, not-independently-wealthy candidates to break in? You probably limit the AOC-style folks a bit by not adjusting for inflation.

> they can easily pass a bill to fund lodgings for congress critters in DC if they wanted

I kinda like that idea; a little Versailles-y.

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