# Government representative raises

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-representative-raises/101675>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 3, 2002, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-representative-raises/101675 "2002-04-03T22:37:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![calvinhrn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/2bfe46/32.png) [@calvinhrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calvinhrn)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2002, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-representative-raises/101675/1 "2002-04-03T22:37:49Z")

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How come there’s next to no money for education and health care, but there’s a seemingly endless pool for representative pay raises?

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2002, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/government-representative-raises/101675/2 "2002-04-03T23:20:32Z")

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The average salary for Representatives and Senators is $150,000 per year. ([cite](http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa031200a.htm))

There are 100 Senators and about 440 Representatives. That’s about $81 million in compensation for congresspeople total.

The [2003 Budget](http://www.ed.gov/offices/OUS/Budget03/Summary/SectionI/index.html) for the US Department of Education totals about $54.5 billion.

The compensation of congressmen, then, totals about 0.14 percent of the budget for the DoEd.

Most funding for education at the K-12 level comes from the states.

The [total budget (PDF)](http://www.hhs.gov/budget/pdf/hhs2003bib.pdf) for the Department of Health and Human Services is about $65 billion.