Base salaries for lawmakers will soon top $106,000 a year, establishing Pennsylvania again as the third highest paid state legislature in the nation.
The 3.5% pay raise starting Dec. 1, pushes yearly salaries to $106,422 — or $8.869 a month — up from the $102,844 received last December when lawmakers’ pay cracked into six figures for the first time. Only state lawmakers in California and New York earn a higher base pay.
Rank-and-file members will now net $8,869 a month. Lawmakers who hold elected leadership posts will earn more, with the highest salaries going to the presiding officers — Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward and House Speaker Joanna McClinton — who will receive $166,132.
The new salary for the four floor leaders — Sens. Joe Pittman, R-Indiana County, and Jay Costa, D-Allegheny County, and Rep. Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery County, and Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County — is $154,192. Other caucus leaders’ pay will range from $121,351 to $142,676.
The pay increase comes as a result of a 1995 law that automatically ties the pay for legislators, judges and the governor and other top executive branch officials to the Consumer Price Index for the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland area. The pay raise for judges and executive branch officials kicks in on Jan. 1.
This year’s pay bump comes at a time when the General Assembly is considering a cost-of-living increase for pre-2001 state and school retirees, who have not received a bump in their pension benefits since 2002.
The House-approved legslation now in the Senate would provide a one-time cost-of-living adjustment ranging from 15% to 24.5%, depending the year of retirement. The highest increase would go to those who retired before July 1982.
It remains uncertain at this time if the Senate will bring up for a vote the retiree COLA bill.
The legislative pay raise is slightly more than the 3.2% increase the Social Security Administration announced beneficiaries would receive in the new year.
