Congress Is Getting Paid Big Bucks for Very Little Work

Would you like a job where you don’t have to do very much at all? How about paid vacations, and a six-digit salary? This sounds like a pretty sweet gig as far as we’re concerned. There’s just one problem; you’d have to be a member of Congress. The branch of American government that's easily the most despised political body in recent history. So why are they getting paid so much to do… well, not very much at all?

Congress has never before been paid so much money to do so little work, and people aren’t happy about it. In a report by The Washington Post, statistics show that members of Congress are doing the bare minimum their job requires, while receiving the maximum possible benefits. The average Congressperson is pulling in $174,000 per year — and walking away with the lowest approval rating in history.

To be fair, this isn’t the highest salary Congress has ever enjoyed. Adjusted for inflation, the Congress serving in 1993 was earning an astonishing $213,000 paycheck. And in 1973, Congress was pocketing over $226,000 a year. So why weren’t people then up in arms about those incredible salaries? Well for one thing, Congress used to do an awful lot more actual work. The politicians in 1973 signed 369 bills into law; that number peaked with an impressive 774 bills signed into law in 1990. You know how many bills Congress has signed into law in 2014? 91. And that’s an improvement; the total number of bills they passed in 2013 was a pitiful 72.

This looks worse for Americans (and better for Congress) if you divide the number of bills Congress passed by the amount they were paid. 2013 was actually the best year to be in Congress — politicians earned nearly $2,500 per bill. This year has shown some restraint on the part of Congress; they only walked away with a little over $1,900 per passed bill.

If you’re not angry yet (or at least seriously considering a Congressional run to pay off all those lingering college loans), this next piece of information might clinch it for you. We’ve been reporting these statistics on a year-by-year basis; when you break it down by how much each Congress is earning, you see who’s really walking away with the big bucks.

How much are we talking about here? Well the 2013 Congress — the membership of which is based on the 2012 midterm election and took over at the start of 2013 — earns $4,368 per bill passed. To put that into perspective, no session of Congress in the last 40 years has ever been paid more money to pass fewer bills. Even the last Congress (which was in charge from 2011 to 2013 and lived very comfortably) earned about a thousand less per bill passed. That’s a pretty amazing pay increase, considering the amount of time the politicians spend squabbling over petty issues instead of doing their jobs.

We’re not sure if it’s funny or sad that Congress can command such impressive salaries considering how much the American public loathes them. The politicians’ approval rating is at a remarkably low 13 percent. Again to be fair, that’s not the lowest rating Congress has ever had to deal with; last November Congress’ approval rating hit an historic low of nine percent (while they were still earning nearly $177,000 by current monetary rates).

There’s probably a lesson here; about how politicians can get big paydays regardless of the amount or quality of their work; about how even when the country is financially struggling those at the top will refuse to give up their money; about how Congress doesn’t even seem to be pretending to work at this point. We’re sure we could learn something from these discouraging statistics, but right now we have to send our resumes over to Congress… just in case.

[Pic via Flickr - www.GlynLowe.com]