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this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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Yeah, DC is expensive, but not unreasonably so. This article claims it's about 50% more expensive than US average. A US Congressperson, without any leadership positions, makes $174,000, which is ~2.5x higher than the average household income (~$71k as on 2021).
So income shouldn't be what stops you from running, it's more than sufficient for living in DC. However, for maintaining two residences, that depends on where that other residence is.
I mean the median income is like 90-110k depending on how you classify DC, thats hardly a huge pay bump for having to deal with national nonsense and the stress of the job. In my opinion minimum should be 250k. If we want to be real about rooting out corruption and voting for the public interest we need to pay them the appropriate wage to do so. We are talking about some of the most important people in the country, and they are making way less than easier jobs in other industries, given the education.
That may be a good idea.
However, you claimed that OP would probably not want to run because of the compensation, as in, they wouldn't be able to afford living there on that salary. $174k is plenty to live in DC (as you pointed out, it's kind 50% higher than the median income), so in terms of being able to live and work there, the income is plenty. It may not be enough to discourage corruption among other members of Congress, but that's not necessarily a concern here (OP didn't seem to be worried about becoming corrupted).
Compensation is set by Congress, so if OP found compensation issues leading to corruption, OP could be part of that solution.
Don't you still have to maintain another residence back home? Still confused on how thay works.
I think so, but they can expense their housing in DC this year.