I’d say that getting paid three-four times the median is well beyond “well paid” and I like politicians who don’t prefer to enable the rich capitalism-ing us “back” to peons and hereditary nobility.
What about Madison Cawthorne?
What about him? He was hired at a salary based on his expected duties. He failed to perform those duties to his superiors’ satisfaction and was terminated. Happens every day.
Where do you find them among the millionaires (or those from millionaire families) who are about 99% of those who can afford to take such a small salary in a high executive position in their 50s? $170,000 is far below the salary of the head of a middling social agency in an average “flyover” city.
To be clear here, you think it’s a problem that only millionaires are in public office, and your proposed solution is to pay anyone who is elected enough that they will become a millionaire almost immediately.
Or … ancient Athens.
Here, housing for parliamentarians is provided in a dedicating housing estate.
And expenses incurred while doing government work should be reimbursed to the office, not the politicians themselves.
There’s something really sick about a country where people can’t “afford” to take a salary several times above the median in a country. If I had the right to vote in the US I’d pinch my nose and vote for the most worker friendly option (judge by voting record if possible). But this thread is about someone actually elected, so there it appears I’d be able to find someone palatable to vote for, as I can in Norway, where I can still vote in national elections.
One of the reasons I think the US will keep the pedal to the metal all the way off the cliff is this idea that the terrible features of your legislature are necessary features, and not the result of years and years of deliberate choices by the rich to continue enriching themselves and their peers.
A big difference between the private sector and elected officialdom is that in elections, people can make the jump to “senior management” with mostly cosmetic vetting, and potentially no relevant technical experience. [does that happen at companies? sure. is it common? not where I’ve worked]
I do wonder about perhaps scaling salaries as people get more experience in the role - it’s weird to me that a new legislator makes the same as someone with a lot of experience/knowledge (putting aside that some positions, like Majority Leader, get extra money).
Millionaires in wealth - as virtually all in Congress are - and high salaried individuals are two different categories. Discussions about inequality in America have made this distinction regularly. Maybe applying the understanding to Congress will help it get understood more widely.
Why would an Australian MP want to move to D.C.?
~Max
Some of it is about what “afford” really means - but some of it is also about the specifics of the job, which may well be different in other countries. A Senator/ Representative is paid $174K according to the most recent numbers I found. They have to have somewhere to live in Washington and maintain a home in their district. I recall at the beginning of the pandemic that a 100 or so politicians slept in their office in Washington because the going rate for a 1BR apt was about $2K - which should be affordable on $174K, but maybe not if you are also maintaining a home for your family in your district in NYC or San Francisco. If they didn’t have to maintain a home in their district or there was some sort of housing provided when they were in DC, this piece would be different.
But can’t “afford” might really mean “it’s not worth it”. Let’s say I live in NYC and earn about $130K a year in a job where I go home to my family every night and have weekends free. I might decide to run for my City Council , which pays $148K and has me home every night - but if I decide to run for Congress, I will not be financially better off, because although my salary will go up to $174K , an increase of $44K, I will have to spend some of it on a place in DC and some will go to taxes. My quality of life will be decreased, as I will no longer be home every night. Maybe I won’t be able to save enough to send my kids to college. So why would I do it ? I wouldn’t unless I was seeking some benefit other than the salary (which often has problems of its own) So there’s a fairly large group of people who will never consider running , those in the middle where $174K is not a whole lot more than they area already making.
Silly me, I thought @Roger_That, to whom my remarks were addressed, was American. Substitute “Canberra” for DC if you like.
I guess my question is whether the base salary of AU$211k is reasonable.
I found a history of the federal MP salary here:
The Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017 (PBR Act) and the Parliamentary Business Resources (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2017 (PBR (CTP) Act) received Royal Assent on 19 May 2017 and commenced 1 January 2018. The PBR Act establishes the new parliamentary work expenses framework. It is a principles-based framework to cover parliamentarians’ work expenses, requiring that the dominant purpose be parliamentary business for any expense claimed and an overriding principle of value-for-money for the Commonwealth.
The above linked website also has a table showing how the ratio of MP’s salaries to average wages has gone from 2.3:1 to 3.5:1 after four decades. Contrast with you know, executive salaries in general which are now well over 300:1.
You can also read the 2017 report on the specific justification for the pay scheme used.
Overall I think their pay scheme is comparable to the U.S., with AU$211k versus US$174k. U.S. Representatives and Senators can also qualify for an old age pension if they serve at least five years, while Australian MPs seem to have a pension program described here.
~Max
Can you point to other places where that distinction is drawn, and quantify exactly what the difference is? Genuinely curious. Incumbents win re-election like 90% of the time, and the average term in office is something like 10 years, so the vast majority would be millionaires by wealth as I see it, but maybe not in the sense you’re talking about.
$174K is an immediate Millionaire?
After taxes that would take at least a decade to get to a million.
Ok, so a Congressperson gets $174K and let’s say they’ve been in office 10 years. They’ve earned 1.7 million over that 10 years - but out of that 1.7 million , they’ve paid taxes and living expenses which almost certainly accounted for over a million of the earnings.
Typically, the definition of a millionaire is someone who has a million dollars in assets excluding their primary residence - but even if you included the value of a primary residence a Congressional salary isn’t going to get anyone there quickly. Not unless they were very close before being elected.
Putting difference between wealth and income in Google generates about 211,000,000 hits so you could do that and satisfy your curiosity for weeks. I hardly know where to start. Assuming you’re asking about the U.S., this article by Pew Research has, um, a wealth of statistics.
As for wealth inequality, here’s one from the top, the St. Louis Fed.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2019/august/wealth-inequality-in-america-facts-figures
You agreed with Exapno_Mapcase that the people running the country should make more than the minimum major league baseball contract of $700,000 per year. Even with a term of two years, yes, winning an election would make someone a millionaire.
We are not discussing the current pay of elected representatives. We are discussing Exapno_Mapcase and DrDeth proposal that we raise their wage to at least $700,000 a year, if not more. So 7 million in ten years.
Gross is not net. After taxes and expenses, the net value of a Congressional salary over ten years is sure to be negative.
What happens annually is that a large number of representatives leave to join law firms or lobbying groups or take other jobs that pay way more than a mere $700,000 a year. I’ve never made $700,000 a year, but I know what real world salaries are like and I know - and so would you if you had taken any time to read the cites that you asked for - that the upper end of the salary range is way above that figure.
You can debate whether anyone is worth that salary. Well, not with me because I wouldn’t waste the time. But arguing that serving in Congress isn’t worth the salary of a 20-year-old rookie ballplayer is beyond comprehension.
Not really. I agreed that people running the country should make more starting baseball player. However, they are paid about 4 times too much as in all professional sports. Sorry for any confusion.