Under federal law, members of Congress are due for a pay raise this month. The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 gives Congress annual cost-of-living adjustments, and according to its formula, representatives and senators should receive a 1.3 percent salary increase in 2012. For rank-and-file members of Congress, that would lead to a pay raise from $174,000 to $176,300.
Yet despite the Ethics Reform Act, salaries for representatives and senators have not budged since 2009. Since then, Congress has blocked these annual cost-of-living adjustments from taking effect. Most recently, a rider to the Continuing Appropriations and Surface Transportation Extensions Act, passed in December 2010, froze congressional pay in 2012. Congress similarly froze its own pay from 1994 through 1997, in 1999, in 2007 and in 2010 and 2011.
