Illinois lawmakers are responsible for policies that consistently leave Illinois at the bottom of the barrel nationally – from debts to taxes to credit ratings to out-migration.
And yet, those lawmakers have just hiked their base pay by nearly $5,000 – to $89,675 a year. That’s on top of a 17 percent raise they gave themselves just six months ago. Illinois lawmakers now have the 4th-highest pay in the country.
They don’t deserve an annual salary that’s 25 percent higher than the state’s median household income ($72,205).
The rapid growth in lawmaker salaries is the result of several increases they’ve given themselves over the past year:
- Lawmakers grew their base pay to $72,906 from $70,645 at the beginning of FY 2022.
- Lawmakers enacted a 17 percent increase during the lame-duck session back in January of last year, pushing their pay up to $85,000.
- Lawmakers just used the 2024 budget negotiations to enact yet another raise of about 5 percent.
Illinois politicians are now the 4th-highest paid state lawmakers in the country, surpassing the salaries of their counterparts in Michigan.
Only lawmakers in California ($119,702), New York ($110,000) and Pennsylvania ($95,432) pay themselves more, according to 2022 pay data from the National Conference of State Legislators.
Most lawmakers in Illinois’ neighboring states make due with far less. Kentucky pays its lawmakers $188 per day of work. Iowa lawmakers receive just $25,000. Indiana pays just $28,791 a year. Only Michigan comes close with $71,685, but Illinois lawmakers’ new salary is still 25 percent higher than that.
And that’s not all
The benefits for Illinois lawmakers don’t end with their salaries. Dozens of lawmakers also receive additional stipends worth anywhere between $11,000 and $30,000 for holding leadership positions in the House and Senate.
House Speaker Chris Welch, for example, currently receives a base salary of $85,000 plus a stipend of $29,530 for his role as Speaker. That’s $114,530 a year (soon to be nearly $120,000) in all.
On top of that, lawmakers also receive compensation worth tens of thousands of dollars in health insurance benefits, travel reimbursements, per-diem payments and, of course, pension benefits. (Though it should be noted there are only about 30 Tier 1 lawmakers remaining and an increasing number of lawmakers have opted-out of receiving a pension altogether.)
Ordinary Illinoisans don’t get to vote for raises for themselves. Their wages have actually lost ground to inflation. Yet they’ll be forced to pay for their politicians’ higher compensation, no matter the cost.
Illinois politicians don’t deserve it.