photo #9199924

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said we need to have empathy for members of Congress and realize they can't make ends meet on $174,000/year.In 2025, Congress worked 88 days. Let's be generous and assume they worked all 24 hours of those days. 88 x 24 = 2,112 hours. A typical 40 hour work week without overtime is 2,080 hours.$174,000/2,112 works out to $82.39/hour. That's just salary, not benefits. For 88 days of work. That's $1,977.27/day.The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. $58/day. $15,080/yr.I have ZERO compassion for members of Congress complaining about "poverty."