Congressional salary and perks: 10 things to know about pay and benefits

Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress share one pay rate. A first-term representative and a senator with decades in office collect the same base salary of $174,000 a year. That rate has applied since 2009. Only a handful of leadership posts pay more, and the Speaker of the House earns the most, at $223,500.

Congressional pay is set by statute, and two rules shape how it can change. The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 created an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. Congress has often voted to block it. The Twenty-seventh Amendment, ratified in 1992, delays any congressional pay change until after the next House election. Those repeated votes to block the adjustment explain why the base rate has held since 2009.Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress share one pay rate. A first-term representative and a senator with decades in office collect the same base salary of $174,000 a year. That rate has applied since 2009. Only a handful of leadership posts pay more, and the Speaker of the House earns the most, at $223,500.

Congressional pay is set by statute, and two rules shape how it can change. The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 created an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. Congress has often voted to block it. The Twenty-seventh Amendment, ratified in 1992, delays any congressional pay change until after the next House election. Those repeated votes to block the adjustment explain why the base rate has held since 2009. READ MORE

Musk’s pay under a SpaceX-Tesla merger: voting control, but no $1 trillion payday

Elon Musk’s recent super-sized pay packages at SpaceX (SPCX.O), opens new tab and Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab were centered on some eye-popping goals: creating a 1 million-person human colony on Mars, putting a million robotaxis on the road and selling a million humanoid robots.

A merger combining Musk’s trillion-dollar rocket and electric vehicle firms would mean he might not ever need to meet those ​lofty targets to achieve his ultimate goal: control over his corporate empire.

Consulting Partner Compensation Strengthens as AI and Private Equity Reshape the Market

The North American consulting market is showing signs of renewed strength, with improving revenue performance and resilient partner compensation. A new report from The Barton Partnership examines how compensation, ownership structures, and career expectations are evolving as consulting firms navigate shifting business models and growing private equity investment. The findings also point to mounting concerns over artificial intelligence, compensation transparency, and the long-term retention of senior consulting talent.

The Barton Partnership’s 2026 North America Partner Compensation Report draws on insights from 146 consulting partners across the United States and Canada, representing strategy consulting, including MBB, Big 4, large multi-disciplinary, and boutique firms. Conducted during mid-2026, the research examines how partner compensation, ownership, career intentions, and market sentiment are evolving across the North American consulting market. READ MORE

Bank executive pay: Compensation design can help reduce excessive risk-taking

Bankers may benefit from the upside of risk-taking through bonuses, while taxpayers may ultimately bear the costs when things go badly wrong. After the Global Financial Crisis, regulators set out to change how bank executives are paid. This column examines how compensation practices have evolved since then and how they relate to bank risk. Longer deferral horizons, as mandated in the EU, have reduced bank risk-taking, but evidence on bonus caps is inconclusive. The 2023 banking turmoil shows that bank boards and supervisors play a crucial role in ensuring good governance of compensation frameworks. READ MORE

Teachers union boss pocketing huge salary while sending her own kid to private school

The president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) received a reported $70,000 annual pay raise while many Illinois students continue to struggle with reading proficiency. 

The IFT Executive Board approved a pay increase for IFT President Stacy Davis Gates, raising her compensation for that role from $180,000 to $250,000 annually, according to an Oct. 29 report from NBC Chicago. READ MORE

Are Wages Keeping Pace? Analyzing the Data Correctly and Avoiding Mixing Apples and Oranges

With the U.S. economy growing at a healthy clip and unemployment low, many people ask: Are workers paid appropriately? The rise in stock market valuations, high home prices and the soaring wealth of artificial-intelligence innovators make the question even more urgent. On a topic so central to fairness and living standards, it’s important to use data that carefully measure and evaluate compensation. In particular, the benchmarks we look to need to account for inflation and reflect worker productivity.

In the years prior to Covid, when adjusted for inflation, show that wage compensation—total wages and salaries plus supplements such as employer contributions to pensions and savings plans—closely tracked productivity gains (Chart 1). The 2020s have been a different story. Wages have increased significantly, but persistently high inflation has undercut those gains. Consequently, while real wages have increased, they haven’t kept pace with worker productivity. No wonder surveys show Americans losing confidence in the economy. Persistent inflation is the culprit. READ MORE

Average Salary by State in 2026

Washington, D.C. leads the country in average hourly earnings, but among the 50 states, it’s Washington State that takes the top spot at $43.93 per hour.

This map compares average hourly earnings across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., revealing a nearly $30 gap between the highest- and lowest-paying jurisdictions. READ MORE

Unusually Steady Compensation Trend Reveals Slower Wage and Faster Benefit Cost Growth

The U.S. Employment Cost Index (ECI) expanded at a slower 0.8% rate in the three months ended September, the softest quarterly pace since the fourth quarter of 2025 (0.7%). On a year-over-year (YoY) basis, compensation costs have been running at the same 3.4% figure for four consecutive quarters. The four-quarter stability in the annual trend is highly unusual for a cyclical indicator that oscillates with long-term wage cycles over time; it has occurred just 2% of the time since the 1982 inception of the series. A deeper dive beneath the headline ECI figure reveals persistently opposing paths for wages and benefits.

There is a trend divergence between ECI: Wages and Salaries and ECI: Benefits for all civilian workers. The former continued to grind down to 3.1% YoY in 2026’s third quarter, a fresh five-year low. The latter picked up to a 3.9% YoY rate, the highest in three years. Moreover, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) unpublished Health Benefits for Private Industry, a subset of ECI benefits, expanded at a 6.4% YoY pace, matching the 2025 fourth quarter’s 20-year high. The combination of higher benefit inflation and slower wage inflation shows an environment where employers’ management of compensation costs is falling directly on employees. READ MORE

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's management style: No chief of staff, no 'toxic' discretionary pay programs

Strauss Zelnick is relentlessly focused on making "the best entertainment on earth." There's no confusion about that mission among his employees, he said.

"I have 13,000 colleagues," the Take-Two Interactive CEO said at Business Insider's The Long Play event in New York City on Thursday. "100% of them can and will tell you exactly what I just said." READ MORE

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Minimum wage hikes hurt the very people they’re meant to help: beginners.

In 2014, Seattle became the first major city to adopt a $15 minimum wage. Since then, many states have followed. The results? Some workers earn more, but for many beginners, entry-level job opportunities have vanished. READ MORE

How much income Americans need to retire comfortably in every state

Households around the country are facing financial stress amid persistent inflation, and retirees facing rising expenses need to ensure their income streams can cover costs.

Americans derive their retirement income from a variety of sources, which can include personal retirement savings, such as through a 401(k) plan or IRA, as well as annuities, pension plans and Social Security benefits. READ MORE

Group Disability Plans Cover Base Salary Only, Not Commissions

A wirehouse financial advisor recently asked me to run the numbers on his group long-term disability (LTD) coverage. He had enrolled years earlier and looked at the benefit summary, which indicated coverage for 60% of his earnings — a figure that seemed generous enough.

What he didn’t check was what that 60% was applied to. When I pulled the certificate and double-checked it years later when his wife was pregnant with twins, he was disappointed to learn it provided 60% of his base salary only. READ MORE

Companies are doing a lousy job of dealing with CEO-to-worker pay gaps, survey says

Eighty-four percent of Americans think it’s important for companies to avoid a major pay gap between CEOs and employees, and yet only 15% of Americans believe companies are doing a good job of reining in such gaps, according to a new confidence survey from Bentley University and Gallup.

The study, released this month, found that 97% of Americans also say it is important for business to make money in an ethical way. However, only 32% of Americans say businesses are accomplishing this. READ MORE

Retailers are still figuring out how to tie AI goals to executive compensation

One prominent retailer recently made a change to executive payouts, highlighting how much the industry’s priorities have shifted in recent years. 

Earlier this month, Reuters published a story about how Ralph Lauren added “AI metrics” as one of the factors that could now be used to adjust annual incentive payouts for executives, alongside more traditional business metrics. Reuters found the change in a 131-page SEC disclosure. A Ralph Lauren spokesperson told Reuters that the change reinforced to executives “opportunities for leveraging AI to enhance our work.”  READ MORE

Could an Employer Compensation Tax Save Social Security?

Most tax proposals to increase Social Security trust fund revenue have focused on raising the payroll tax rate or lifting the payroll tax cap to increase the amount of wages subject to the payroll tax. Less attention has been given to other kinds of base broadeners, such as adding fringe employer benefits to the payroll tax base, which have the potential to raise substantial revenue. READ MORE

United CEO silent on $32M compensation after calling wealth gap a 'danger'

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is mum when it comes to his own money, even as he calls for a national wealth tax and says income inequality is a "danger" to society.

Kirby, who took home about $32.3 million in total compensation in fiscal year 2025, made the remarks when asked about declining public trust in corporate executives during an interview with The New York Times. His compensation includes salary, stock awards and performance incentives. That was about 334 times the airline’s median employee compensation of $96,670, according to United’s 2026 proxy statement. READ MORE