Any Congressional wage increases are voted on individually. There are no automatic pay increases.

It takes YEARS to get even a modest minimum wage increase approved.

I'm sure most workers on the minimum wage would take the same as Congress gets as a guaranteed raise! The current minimum rate has stayed the same ($7.25) since 2009.


http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/agencies/a/raise4congress.htm

Salary will jump by $3,400 a year in 2004

By Robert Longley,

Want a raise? Don't beg to your boss. Just vote yourself one. That's what the United States Congress just did. For the fifth year in a row, lawmakers voted not to reject their automatic "cost of living" raise that will increase the annual salary of members by $3,400 to a total of $158,103 per year.

In 1989, Congress passed an amendment allowing for the automatic raises, unless lawmakers specifically voted to reject it. Which Congress did, until 2000.

The fiscal year 2004 Transportation and Treasury Department Appropriations bill included Congress' 2.2 percent pay raise, along with a 4.1 percent raise for federal workers and military personnel.

"Members of Congress have the only job in the country whose occupants can set their own salary without regard to performance, profit, or economic climate," said Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste in a press release. "Clearly, members must think that money grows on trees. With a $480 billion deficit, the escalating cost of the war in Iraq, and a stagnant economy, Congress should be curbing spending, not lining their pockets at our expense."

FULL info at link.

which isn't true.

Anyway tie it to what Congress gets.

Republicans always say businesses can't afford the raise! Why do they think taxpayers can afford raises for Congress?

jobs I got were pretty much minimum wage. However this was back in 1958 and you could actually live on minimum wage back then. I think it was tied to going rents and food expenses that the number crunchers were supposed to keep track of. I wish I knew how they did it, but it did work.

Between the sweet lobbying jobs they line up for after their terms, and the fact that most politicians are already wealthy before seeking office, they really don't need the money. It's kind of how putting a horse in the Kentucky Derby is nearly always more expensive than the stake money.

Make the minimum wage something like 7% of the average CEO salary and the field might actually start to level.