Your Congressman Is Quietly Supplementing His $174K Salary on Your Dime

U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) arrives ahead of a classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) briefing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 18, 2026.

An article by Terry Schwadron, published by Alternet, spotlights a long-running tension in American public life: the lawmakers who control federal spending and set the nation's tax policy collect a $174,000 annual salary funded by taxpayers — and may supplement that pay within strict limits set by federal ethics rules. Those limits, and the disclosure system built around them, form the framework voters rely on to understand how members of Congress earn money beyond their public salaries.

What Members of Congress Are Paid

Rank-and-file members of the House and Senate receive a standard annual salary of $174,000. That figure has been frozen since 2009, when Congress began repeatedly declining the automatic cost-of-living adjustments that would otherwise raise legislative pay — a freeze that has now spanned more than fifteen years.

Leadership positions carry higher rates: the Speaker of the House earns $223,500, while the majority and minority leaders in both chambers are paid $193,400.

Compensation extends beyond salary. Members participate in the Federal Employees' Retirement System, with pensions that vest after five years of service, and they obtain health coverage through the District of Columbia's insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. Separate allowances cover staff, travel, and district offices — resources for running congressional operations rather than personal income. The constitutional basis is Article I, Section 6, which provides that members are compensated for their services out of the U.S. Treasury — the mechanism behind the taxpayer-funded framing of the debate.

The Limits on Outside Income

Federal law does not bar lawmakers from outside work, but it caps it. Under the Ethics Reform Act of 1989, members may not accept outside earned income above 15% of the Level II rate of the Executive Schedule — a ceiling that has amounted to roughly $30,000 in recent years. The same law prohibits paid speeches, known as honoraria. The cap leaves room for activities such as teaching, publishing, or maintaining professional credentials, provided the earnings stay under the ceiling and are properly disclosed.

Members must also file annual financial disclosure reports listing their assets, income sources, liabilities, and positions held — filings made publicly available through the House Clerk and the Secretary of the Senate, so voters can examine where a member's money comes from. The STOCK Act of 2012 tightened oversight of securities trading, requiring disclosure of trades worth more than $1,000 within 30 to 45 days and reaffirming that lawmakers may not profit from nonpublic information obtained through their official duties. The measure passed with broad bipartisan support, and proposals to tighten congressional stock-trading rules have surfaced repeatedly in the Congresses since.

The Constitution itself addresses congressional pay: under the 27th Amendment, no law varying the compensation of senators and representatives can take effect until an intervening election of the House of Representatives has occurred. First proposed in 1789, the amendment was not ratified until 1992 — a built-in delay that means any future change to legislative pay would follow a House election before taking effect.