Might be unpopular be politicians should actually be paid a lot. You want to attract actually skilled and capable people after all
But it should also be there only source of income, no speaking gigs, no stock trades, no side business
Make Congress Earn Average American Wage.
Submitted 3 weeks ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to workreform@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/43aeb536-7e1d-46e6-a0d0-d93d5224d220.jpeg
Comments
gmtom@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
One of the reasons a lot of government positions track if you have debts is that propensity to financial burdens make politicians more suceptible to corruption.
If you pay them less, they are actually going to be more easily bribed.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you pay them less, they are actually going to be more easily bribed.
If you keep the same people in office, then yeah. I wonder who else would be up for the job if the pay was lower. Hopefully more Mamdanis.
CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’d agree with you except we see politicians selling out for even tiny amounts while having tens of millions in the bank. If you’re willing to sell the food out of the mouths of the poor for $2,500 and you’ve got 12 mil in the bank your inherently corrupt and having a big paycheck won’t change that. They have billionaire brain rot, number go up syndrome, as long as number goes up that’s all that matters no matter how much they are given or have.
Soleos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
These people are massively advantaged with the current campaign system/rules.
njm1314@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No. You see the tiny tip of the iceberg in payments. There is always a ton more beneath the surface.
deft@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
It’s also actually a means to prevent corruption unfortunately. Less likely to take ridiculous sums if you’re financially solid
Azal@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Live in Missouri. Our state legislature liked to for years vote down a pay raise for themselves. They made sure to stand up and wave “Look at how good we’re doing.”
If I wanted to run for legislature, I would have had to taken a cut in pay and I am definitely not on the top 50% of the state, much less the country.
YouTalkinToMe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think it is much more important what they are using that skill for.
hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Median is a better choice as its less affected by outliers.
The mean average is the amount you compute by putting all the money that is earned and put it in a big pot and divide it up evenly amongst everyone.
Median is where you find the single most average person and ask how much they make.
Median gives them an incentive to improve the income of the average American. Mean average gives an incentive to increase national wealth regardless of who’s hands its in, and an incentive to decrease the population. That is not a good incentive.
But also keep in mind congress members are local representatives. They need to be in DC while in session, and in their state or district at other times to be available to their constituents. The job requires maintaining two households, so they should earn enough for that. Unless we provide them college dorm level mandatory housing in the capital. Then median alone is enough.
SippyCup@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I get that you’re trying to be accurate, and I respect that.
Let’s use the mean, and eliminate the top and bottom 1% of earners. Which would put Congress’ salary between 57,000 and 61,000
Using the median gives them a salary of 87,500 dollars.
That top 1% is a real motherfucker.
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
$87,500 is the median household income.
Median personal income (income of all persons 15+ with any amount of income) is $46,960.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
For the bottom 1%, I assume this includes the unemployed as making $0?
And for the billionaire class, if we are talking AGI here (which I assume we are) I’m guessing they have some entirely normal AGI. If they are paying anything on their actual wealth it’s probably through some kind of capital gains tax, or hidden in some trust or shell corporation.
So before eliminating top 1% and bottom 1%, we might want to clarify those items, as the “average” worker will mainly just have a non-zero AGI they are taxed on.
hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Eliminating the top 1% of earners is a good policy I support, but I don’t think it makes sense as a way to calculate averages.
Though your proposal might work now, in the fullness of time things will change, and the 1% may not be the right number. I don’t think you can rely on governments to update numbers promptly. There are places in England that have fines in law defined in denominations that no longer exist. You can’t rely on governments keep things up to date.
But your doesn’t address the underlying problems with using the arethmetic mean. It seems like you’re just searching for justification to pay people you don’t like less.
I believe everyone should be able to live comfortably, and well designed incentive systems are effective at shaping behavior. Median is better on both fronts.
FundMECFS@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
They can earn median salary whilst getting stipends for travel, congressional office, and DC housing.
pachrist@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I have always heard people make this argument, and since it’s Great British Bake-off time, I’ll use it as the example.
There’s no prize, and the pay per episode is fairly minimal. Less than $500/episode for contestants. Plus, they get ~$2000 stipend for ingredients. On the fly converting pounds to dollars, so these are guesstimates.
What that means is that Great British Bake-off does not find the best home baker in Britain, it finds the best baker who can afford to take time off to be on the show. If you can afford to miss school, work, or being a parent for 12 weeks, you can’t compete.
Same applies here.
If you can’t afford to live on the salary, you’ll only get people in office who don’t need the salary. We already get that to some extent with campaigning costs. This could make it worse. The barrier of entry is higher.
Instead, we need a performance review with real consequences other than “Guess I don’t get re-elected, but I still get a book deal.”
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
No.
The only reform we need is to take money out of politics.
If you get X number of people to sign your petition, you get y dollars to spend on a campaign. The spending is well monitored, so the candidate can’t buy themselves a Lambo and call it a legit expense.
riskable@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
What’s interesting is that a candidate could rent, lease, or buy a Lamborghini as part of their campaign. That’s perfectly legal!
The restriction is that they can only use that vehicle for traveling to/from campaign events. Since this is highly impractical and a waste of precious campaign funds, that doesn’t usually happen.
Another interesting fact is that candidates can get reimbursement from their campaign funds for miles traveled in their personal vehicles (when campaigning).
doingthestuff@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
Getting paid mileage is normal for a lot of corporate jobs. Not my job these days, but many jobs.
arrow74@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Representatives need a salary, otherwise only those that are independently wealthy can hold office.
I’m with you on this idea for campaign financing though
chewypoops@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Just checking the room here, y’all know that Congress doesn’t control things like private pensions, 401Ks, or average wages, right? You’re blaming Congress for the blight of capitalism.
They also don’t take that large of a salary. The actual issue is that they are allowed to do insider trading and make an undeserved fortune investing…
But pretending that all of these problems are just problems with how the laws are written is just ignoring the actual source of these problems.
redditStinksSuperBad@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“y’all know that Congress doesn’t control things like private pensions, 401Ks, or average wages, right?”
This is wrong on so many levels.
Smoogs@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Even then it’s about who is enforcing our checking it.
All this inside trading is supposedly illegal to be doing whole in Congress but there it be happening.
No one blinks.
And a president claiming to go for third term.
And people are getting this as an actual threat that could happen.
So who is pumping the brakes here? Looks like a whole lotta ppl going “well it looks good on paper” and then doing a whole lotta nothing after waiving said paper around.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Private pensions is in fact something that has frequently been legislated on
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And getting paid $250k for being a “guest speaker” sonewhere when it’s really just a bribe. Even if congress weren’t paid any salary they would still make bank from other sources of revenue.
Its like how DJT took a “$1 presidential salary” or whatever but has made billions doing other things.
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
Always fascinates me that the knee jerk solution to ‘government service sucks’ is ‘pay the service providers less.’
I like the idea of tying congressional compensation to median or minimum wage, so they’re motivated to improve that statistic (although Goodhart’s law), but it’s got to be enough to compete with other jobs with similar level of responsibility & authority. Median income jobs include K-8 teachers, tax prep, social work, & occupational safety; congress is basically the country’s board of directors, and S&P 500 directors average around $300k, or 4.5x median.
The real problem with congress is it’s so easy to funnel nearly unlimited money to politicians’ control - it may not be salary, and there may be restrictions, but campaign donations provide an awful lot of opportunities for diversion. Massive campaign & campaign finance reforms, in ways that would probably set SCOTUS into a rage, be a real step toward making congress more accountable to the 90%.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
Always fascinates me that the knee jerk solution to ‘government service sucks’ is ‘pay the service providers less.’
Congresspeople are not the service providers. The various agencies are the service providers. Congress controls the pay to those providers.
Nobody here has asked for the service providers to take a pay cut. OP is asking for Congress to take a pay cut until the service providers under their control are providing a higher level of service.
Congress’s report card is the well-being of the public. In the subject of “Financial Wellness”, their grade is “$66,621”.
They aren’t being asked for a pay cut. When they improve their grade to “$174,000”, they will be entitled to their current pay. When they raise it to “$250,000”, they will be entitled to a substantial raise. It’s only a pay cut if they insist on causing harm.
Krankenwagen@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Does this not incentivise them to prop up the overpayed class of management so they can point to is as a comparable?
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
You’d use median income as the benchmark, but give them a current (or historical) multiplier. Fun fact: before 1970, the board of directors was a prestige position, almost always unpaid. Before 1980, average (mean) CEO salary was pretty close to mean worker salary, which would probably have been around 2x median.
answersplease77@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Just make inside trading and taking corporate and foreign Pac bribes illegal for them.
Currently these two rules alone are why they rig laws for corportations and big pharma and insurance and oil companies, weapon manufaturers, banks, israel… they work for everyone but the citizens… And that some fucking how is legal and practiced in the open by both Democrats and Conservatives alikelemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is where the real money is, and this is the real source of corruption; their salary is not the problem. In fact, I think the salary should be high enough that normal people will still be interested in the difficult and ugly game of politics. I wouldn’t run for office for less money than I make at my job - I have bills to pay.
I think they should be barred altogether from making stock trades while in office. Maybe their portfolios could go into a blind trusts (or index funds or something) so that they cannot make insider trades. Likewise for their partners and close family.
Manipulating the stock market is the principal motivation behind Trump’s trade and foreign policy. The same can probably be said about many Democrat and Republican congresspeople. Allowing this obscenity is the single greatest weakness of the American political system.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I have a solution. Come up with actual Qol metrics for the average American, check them every 3 months, if they go down a congressman is selected at random for execution.
flandish@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
no. we should:
- make them not have a connection at all to any trade in stocks
- serve a maximum of four years, total, across all “terms”
- not allow for legacy ppl to fill in when they leave early
- force them to retire at <natl retirement age> here
- force them to pay for their own healthcare
- and finally: imprison them for life should they be seen taking bribes, materially supporting genocide (including in israel), and breaking any other laws.
tough shit.
SippyCup@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not allow them to take a position with any company that may have been affected by a vote they cast.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t agree with max terms, mainly because good leaders are fucking rare and if they want to keep going, it’s to everyone’s benefit. Plus, as Trump is showing, when the really bad ones come along, they’ll challenge the maximum rules anyways and not give a shit about the optics like a good faith leader that feels like they need to answer to their population.
Though maybe each leadership term should end with a trial of some sort, though it would be difficult or impossible to be sure that those trials would be run in good faith rather than the ruling class taking it over to punish leaders that hurt them for the sake of the people.
goldfndr@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I agree about good leaders being rare. Instead of max terms, I’d advocate for ineligibility to chair a committee after a certain number of years. Limit that particular incentive to stay.
flandish@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
oh. unlike the constitution, i meant for my rules to be immutable. never again to change without complete dissolution of the government anyway. (which is something i also support, anyway…)
and on the good leaders thing - if a good leader is great, they’ll inspire and consult with the next one and they’ll be happy to because doing it in this way should be considered the highest form of social praxis. and they’d be honored to have done a full term without being jailed for life. after all, if they’re not already a criminal they have nothing to worry about, right, i think thats what they tell us. 😂
SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This has been tried before and the result is that only rich people can afford to run for office. Is that really what you want?
DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sounds good on paper, until you notice this means… only the wealthy would ever bother running for office.
ProdigiousInsanity@lemmus.org 2 weeks ago
That’s true already
DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Right. So it wouldn’t change anything.
tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
That’s the theory behind pensions for most public offices and the police. To remove the temptation for corruption in office… not that it works
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I’m sure many low wage workers would jump at the chance to actually make a difference.
Why do we think only people who have become career politicians should be politicians? They’re the last people who should do it.
A room of 600 plumbers, nurses, and bin men would make far better decisions than them.
DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes, but in that case adopting Sortition and abolishing career politicians makes way more sense.
Scrogu@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Would be fine with them earning a multiple of minimum wage so when they raise their salary they raise the minimum.
devedeset@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Alternatively: tie the minimum wage to inflation. Some US states do this.
Scrogu@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
It’s too easy to use an inflation measure which is not accurate.
devedeset@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If members of Congress earn the average or median wage, that will ensure that only the rich can actually hold that position. Very, very few non-rich people would take that risk.
Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And no money from lobbyists, no insider trading and no ability to award contracts to private entities
MehBlah@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My thoughts on that was they got paid the average pay for the state the live in. Down here in the south they would have to get food stamps.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Add more term limits. You serve two terms and you’re out, no exceptions. I’ll even lend you a Mexican saying: “Sufragio efectivo no reelección”
stickyprimer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This would mean that the job would only appeal to two kinds of people: those earning below the average wage, or the very rich who don’t care what the job pays.
I’m all for low-earning folks getting a raise by running for Congress, but the problem is that anyone above average wage will see this as a pay cut. And the higher end of wage earners are the more highly educated, skilled, and experienced people.
Even if Congressional wages seem high now, most well qualified professionals can still earn way more in the private sector.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ah yes, the one job where you have to spend months campaining, puting up your own money for ads, be hated by part of your community no matter what you do and smeared in the media with poor chances of even get the job should pay the average wage and benefits. Because that is how you attract honest people who are fine just with the salary, as opposed to the ones who want to steal everything not bolted down.
Stupid ass takes like this is why so many people outside these community see socialist as moronic clowns.
FurryMemesAccount@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
MEDIAN wage. No rich to skew things.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Average? Hell no. At least have the kindness to stipulate median. And really, it should be the minimum.
tatterdemalion@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Better yet, bring back the ancient Greek lottery for state office.
iuseasahibtw@ani.social 3 weeks ago
401K’s were never meant for retirement. They were initially meant to provide tax perks for executive level employees for their profit sharing bonuses.
They were never meant to replace pensions or be used as a retirement vehicle.
Financial advisors and banks pushed them on regular employees because they fell out of favor with executives in favor or better options.
401Ks are not a good option for regular people. General investment in ETFs or a diversified dividend portfolio and t bonds is much better.
yesman@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is a politician’s idea. Their wages and benefits are trivial compared to the insider trading and other corruption.
Instead of making them live on a low salary, why not try making them live on their high salary first?
qbus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They should also have to use the VA for health insurance
roboflop@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Early retirement, absolutely.
With regards to politicians wages, I think they should be commensurate with the responsibilities of the job. But they should have no other means of income during their term, and potentially for a period afterwards. There would need to be much more stringent auditing and enforcement to ensure this.
Politicians engaging I’m outside employment seems crazy to me, and is clearly a route to corruption.
Psythik@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Where can I find a job that pays that much? I’ve never passed a $40K salary in my life.
itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
You could even let the existing Congress grandfather themselves in so they can pull the ladder up one last time.
FukOui@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I agree with the retirement age part, but I’m conflicted about the regular wage part.
If gov members work for a “regular” wage, then what would be their incentive in public service vs other jobs. Or what’s stopping them from working a regular wage and then side hustle as the billionaires’ lap dog (not that different now tbh).
Darkonion@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’d need to enforce no income from other sources also. Before, during, and after. Significant monitoring of extended family and personal connections. Should those things be monitored for corruption under their current salary?
If proper funding for journalism and watchdog organisations, or judicial bodies designed to serve the people’s interests, hadn’t already been dismantled or drowned out in the din of other voices it might be possible. Those systems/funding could be restored and the competing intrests spewing lies culled or limited. It is not impossible, but it will be hard. Attend in-person forums if you can tolerate it. Speak and lead if you can. Make connections.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Also when I’m King, if a company wants to make layoffs, anyone who has served as CEO within the past year also must be laid off, with the same severance package as all the workers that they failed.
turdas@suppo.fi 3 weeks ago
The usual argument against this is that the less politicians earn, the easier they are to bribe.
ceenote@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Politicians will be happy to take bribes regardless of what they earn.
yakko@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
At least until campaign finance is fixed. Citizens United has fully instituted political bribery as a matter of course
binarytobis@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’ll never get over how cheap it is to buy politicians. They make so much money, then they can be made to vote for a genocide for $3000.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Which is why taking away their salary punishes honest politicians more than corrupt ones.
oce@jlai.lu 3 weeks ago
As an intermediate solution, you can define it as X times the median, so they still have incentive to raise the median.
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
This is the way, and they aren’t allowed to buy any stocks, only ETF’s
Jhex@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I know you are right, that is what they claim. Having said that, 25 years of naked corruption should be enough, even for Americans, to realize they have been lied to
sh00g@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Or even if you take the bribery angle out of it, the less politicians earn, the less it incentivizes working class people from going into government because they need the money. The net result is you end up ruled by the wealthy (including those who will advocate for pay decreases for congresspeople, which just worsens the problem).
Montagge@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
How is that different from now?
arrow74@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Also low compensation makes it nearly impossible for the average person to run an office, live in DC, and maintain a home in their home district.
I’d be okay if they recieved some kind of voucher or stipend that can only be used on a lease in DC and office necessities. Just to make up the difference
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Just build dorms for Congress. There are only around 540 of them, including the non-voting members from PR and DC.
You could make a very nice apartment building for Congress for less than we spend on a lot of other shit. Remove all the extra costs for maintaining two residencies. Travel is already an extra stipend. So is food.
awfulawful@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Or that you just make politics into something only for the independently wealthy. This is especially true at the state and local level where positions are often part time. The result is often those with the power to make their own schedules (landlords, lawyers, trust fund kids, etc.) make up a disproportionate amount of elected officials. You’ll get some people who are passionate enough to give up the rest of their lives, but not enough.
UnpledgedCatnapTipper@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
The biggest argument against it is they need to maintain 2 residences and travel back and forth from their district to DC. If they’re not paid enough to do that, only the wealthy and corrupt could ever be in congress.
Snapz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But the usual rational response is, if what they earn is never enough for the blind pursuit of more, than they will always, “make less” in their minds and justify abuse of their positions.
This city needs an enema…
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So you set the congressional pay at a high level, and ban all other sources of income. Any securities must be placed in a blind trust for the duration of service.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My argument is, what am I supposed to be entertained by, if the number of USian political posts is brought down to zero?
Malica@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
That’s what the FBI and clearance is for