Is Congress Underpaid?

Timing, they say, is everything. Perhaps this wasn't an ideal time for Congress to raise its pay. Jordy Yager has this take at The Hill.

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.
Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

So, is Congress overpaid?

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.
Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

$170K doesn't sound like starvation wages, but Congress members mostly do need to keep a couple of houses. Also, compared to a lot of other people in our economy - college football coaches, local school superintendents, surgeons, partners in major law firms and top level executives - it's chicken feed. Also, Jordy's comparison numbers are bullshit.

About that $6 bucks a day in 1789 - the GDP per capita in the US in 1790 was $48, so $6/day was something like 1/8 the annual income of an average person. The GDP per capita today is nearly 1000 times as large - $46,000, so using that conversion factor, modern Congress persons are drastically underpaid. That huge difference is due to two factors, inflation and the general increase in per capita income. The former is a factor of about 20 and the second of about 50. In any case, an average worker today is much better off compared to his Congressman than his counterpart in 1889.