Surprise surprise

It was nice of them to establish a baseline for the raises we should all be getting. Good job, lawmakers!

If you can give yourself a raise with no objection, why not 100%?

The public can swallow 29%, 100% might get too many people pissed off and pissed off enough to do something about it

"It will also include a $35,000 cap on the amount of outside income lawmakers can earn, though that won’t take effect until 2025."

They've tried limiting outside income before and the courts ruled they were overstepping their bounds. What's to say that doesn't happen again?

I actually thought this was fine at first because I was expecting their current salary to be dogshit, and I think rich people shouldnt be the only ones who can afford to be in the state legislature, but I was surprised to see it was already $110,000. I understand that's not a *ton* of money especially if you're living in NYC and have a family, and i'm fine with approving a raise with inflation going up, but $32,000?! I mean, that's a bit excessive.

NY lawmakers work in Albany which is significantly cheaper than NYC.

They work in Albany but they dont all live there

Not to mention 29% of a high salary is already a huge amount compared to what anyone else is used to.

Especially because they have to have residency in their districts as well. One of my state reps lives a couple of blocks away, but this is only the district residence. Some (most?) might also have another in Albany.

Agree 29% isn’t too bad but when was the last time us regular people got a 29% annual raise? Mine are usually 2-3% lol. Started a new company last year so we’ll see what (if anything) I get this time.

Good.

Salaries should be high, otherwise only those who can sustain themselves otherwise (rich people) will run for office

2-3% in these times is rough…but at least you can take solace in helping the Fed with wage inflation 🫤

Must be nice.

They also have great benefits.

The fact that this is even allowed means that they are all morally bankrupt, deserving of naming and shaming, and should be booted from office and banned from ever holding any kind of government position for the rest of their lives.

Best city in the world? This city should fuck itself.

So who exactly should decide how much they get paid?

Median pay in their district (or the state of you want it to be even across the board). They can all fuck off otherwise. This is the only way they'll try to improve our lives.

So you think that politicians in poor districts should make less money? And you think this will somehow magically create improvement in these districts?

This might be the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.

We have a bunch of reps in jersey city that split an apt with someone and actually live in the suburbs with kids.

The NE is so insanely corrupt

It says in the article that the current salary took effect in 2019. Cumulative inflation from 2019 to 2023 is (using monthly estimates for the year which doesn't have official data yet) something in the range of 24%. Combine that with the cap on outside income and this seems fine. There's a lot more to get angry about before this.

EDIT: Additionally, before that, the last pay increase was in 1999. The 1999 to 2019 increase was from $79k to $110k, or a 39% increase, over a period with 53% total inflation. This last increase pretty much just gives the rest of the pay bump from that.

Sure, but do you think you work very hard lol? The justification for this raise is comical. His first argument tacitly admits the legislature doesn't work "very hard" as he alleges (note the use of "I think"). Two sentences later "[he] think[s]" legislators works hard. He knows he's full of shit and can't even sell his own raise. Also, what does there is no compensation you can give for people to be away from their families mean? $110,00 seemed to do the trick.

“As I've always said, I think legislators work very hard, even some of the Republicans,” said Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx). “Again, there's no compensation you can give for people to be away from their families. I think legislators work hard.”

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While by no means a Republican, I was leery of a super-majority because there's no caucusing, no deal making, no blocks to foster compromise. If there are any fiscal conservatives they have no voice. This is what we voted for....

Stop making sense. We want to complain.

Politicians should be paid MINIMUM WAGE as they are supposed to be representing OUR FUCKING INTERESTS.

You can't say you represent your district when you live in a brownstone and have a chauffeur

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I don’t think having a salary of $160,000 would allow you to have a brownstone and a chauffeur in New York.

Technically, they haven’t done it before. A commission set the increases/cap before. The court case was most about whether the commission had the authority to do so. The court said it didn’t.

The legislature passing the cap by itself is on much firmer legal ground.

Who would want the job? The only people who would run would be people who don’t need the salary at all. Look at New Hampshire’s legislature (lowest paid in the country). It’s filled with retirees and wealthy people.

Nice job when all they do is stare at ceilings.

They should be content with their graft.

Anything more than what I make is blatant corruption. Anything less than what I make is a recipe for lawmakers to sell their souls to the corporations for a cushy job once they're out of office.

Most either split an apartment in Albany with another legislator (dirt cheap, less than 2k a month for a smaller 2 bedroom that's walking distance to their offices) or stay in hotels. They can use their campaign funds to pay for the hotels or use their per diem (that's right the state pays them extra to travel to Albany already) of $183 a night. That pays for a pretty nice hotel in Albany, or some of them stay at the shitty days in by the airport for $60 a night and pocket the rest.

well they should.

Gee I womd3r why this never happens just BEFORE an election.

And yet, the nursing union is set to strike because hospitals are having a shit fit about 3% a year… which is what we got pre-pandemic…

…..

Keys say they set the cap to be 15% of their salary.

By raising their salaries or at least trying to they are also raising that cap.

Not a good look with all this inflation going on and wages for the little people remain the same

And yet nurses are not paid paid taxpayers nor did they vote for increasing their wages by 29%. Sorry did you read the article its like you meant to comment in the thread about nurses🤡

So what is their total comp (health care, pension, etc)?

If someone would do a solid and post the names and faces of these lawmakers. If there's one thing I can promise is my petty revenge and to never elect these assholes again when I see their name on a ballot.

I’m just drawing a comparison between two systems of allowing someone to earn more money, and how they’re quiet juxtaposed

One, hot off the heels of a global pandemic of which NYC was the American epicenter, has to fight and plead for months to have 3% spit in their faces.

And the other system, which is supposed to be representative of the people, as you so eloquently pointed out, does not have its salary increases dictated by those same tax paying people.. they just govern themselves and approve unanimously.

Do you understand how drawing a comparison between two things works, right? You know that oranges can, in fact, be compared to apples?

cough, cough

That’s informative. So a huge pay raise and we also pay for their stays.

Hoping my new company is better. This will be my first performance cycle with them..

High quality response - makes sense

Yeah. At least one legislator went to jail for fraud around per diem recently too. He was billing for Albany stays on days he never went up therem

Hope you get a good one then. I don’t know you but you probably deserve it!

As people are getting laid off and pay/hiring freezes

Thank you!! We all deserve raises that at least mitigate cost of living increases!

Thank God they found the money to give themselves a raise but can't find the money for schools, garbage, rat problems, crime, migrants,etc. This is horrible don't do your job heres a raise good job what kinda shit is that

If Kathy Hochul doesn’t sign the bill before the end of the bill becomes dead. They can’t undo a non-vote by a vote because the session ends December 30th. It wouldn’t be veto, it would just die.

The reason it takes effect in 2025 is so they can get the raise and a ‘concession’ this year but have time to rescind the restriction before it takes place

We should eliminate the state senate, ban outside income, and give the state assembly an even bigger raise, so that talented people want to compete for the job because of the salary. Right now we have mediocre people competing for the job because of the graft opportunities.

This seems reasonable. They do an important and high level job. And the cost of living is going up considerably. If your argument in support of unions asking for raises is rooted in rising living costs I’m not sure why that wouldn’t apply here as well.

I’d really like the see staff comp go up though. The pay for jobs like this are ass, to the point that the only people that do it are young rich kids.

> courts ruled they were overstepping their bounds

judge: "you're not allowed to limit your income. you're only allowed to increase it"

it's just an inflation adjustment like everyone else is getting.... oh, wait

There's a city smack in the middle of LA that recently voted to enact a $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers... which they repealed literally hours later when the new city council came in 🥲

Granted LA didn't have it as bad as NYC but still. We really can't get a win, can we?

Oh good.

capping outside income limits who will take the job and limits candidates they have to face. state legislature is a part time job. This basically limits it to business owners or people with wealthy spouses.

lots of state lawmakers and smaller town mayors have regular jobs. This is not done to be democratic, but to limit competition for jobs.

Downvoted by mouthbreatherd without critical thinking skills.

lmao

I suggest we lay them all off instead.

No. I’m sorry but “public servants” shouldn’t be supporting anti market principles such as unions or any other regulatory barrier. Neither should they be inflating the cost of government. Lay them all off.

City workers haven't had a single cost of living increase, not even 1%, since 2019. I imagine state workers similarly haven't seen increases in years.

It's correct to complain when the salaries for state and city workers haven't gone up at all since 2019. City workers haven't had a single cost of living increase since 2019.

They didn’t even give their underpaid staffers a raise. They called a special session just to do this

You get what you vote for.

You know there is a recession when kleptocrats increase their paychecks.

It means that kickbacks from special interests aren't coming through.

Coincidently predictably with the republican take over of our states legislature

Well if you’re against unions at least you’re being consistent.

They are public servants but they’re also people doing a demanding job whose counterparts in the private sector are making 10x what they do as executives. They need to be willing to make a sacrifice but it’s also not fair to place this level of responsibility on someone and then put them in a financial situation where they need a roommate if they want to live in an ok area.

And this is especially true if they’re being prevented from earning more than 35k outside of government, given that many presumably have established careers.

And their staffers, they get nada. They get to go screw themselves. They get to figure out how to live on 36K a year. They get to keep worrying about retaliation if some creep assemblyman feels them up.

I don’t want to hear a single lecture ever again from those sanctimonious Albany hacks about how compassionate they are.

This is how you get another Trump, dipshits.

Career democrats all hypocrites, at least Republicans tell you when they screw you over

Legislators: Well what do you expect, inflation is crazy!

Normal employees: My annual 2% COL raise was suspended this year.

Wouldn't they be splitting the apartment in Trenton, not JC?

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With this raise their salaries are $142k/year (members of Congress make $174k).

Same concept for Congress. Maintaining two homes is not cheap, particularly when of the homes is in expensive as fuck DC.

Unpopular opinion alert, but I think state legislature salaries should be quite high because I think it would encourage and allow for people from the working and middle class to run and be elected.

Yes, it costs hundreds of thousands if not millions for campaigns in a state as big as NY, so that's already limiting. But if you only make like $40,000 as a State Assemblyperson, you have to hold a main job and you won't have the time to fully dedicate yourself to either.

If you make salaries high enough to allow actual common folk to consider running and be elected, but not so high that it's legit grifting on the taxpayer dime, I think that would be a good balance for more effective representation. And yes, there will always be corrupt people in government because power corrupts. But I bet you it would be less if Assemblypeople got paid like $200,000 per year and just fully dedicated themselves to serving their constituents.

Correct. Unions are unacceptable and have no place in a capitalist society.

Public sector? Demanding? That’s an oxymoron. There is little to no work done in the public sector. Their contribution to society is negative. Their “peers” aren’t making anything as their contribution is not comparable.

Yeah man, just $20k more will fix the problem. This time it will work for sure.

They deserve it. They're the hardest working people in this state.

Right, because the poors totally have the funds to run a campaign…

The fact that these people are allowed to set their own income is ridiculous in the first place. A vote to increase their salaries should be a ballot measure.

Exactly this. As Dwight Eisenhower once said: "The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity." They're giving themselves a pay raise while we have chronically underpaid educators from grade school all the way up to SUNY, not to mention the healthcare workers who are threatening to strike due to unsatisfactory pay. It reeks of self-interest and a lack of integrity.

Legislators should be the last ones to get a pay raise and only when pay raises across the state have been addressed. As that old Marine adage goes (which has been monopolized by that annoying motivational speaker Simon Sinek): "Leaders eat last."

OK, then enjoy having Congress being composed of like 80% millionaires, or maybe even higher. And it's probably close to that percentage for NY state gov.

>This is how you get another Trump, dipshits.

Lol what? You say this as if Trump was actually a champion of the under class and demanded they get paid fairly. Republicans do this exact same shit, the difference is they never even bother to show an ounce of compassion for anyone in the middle class or lower

What? Democrats have a super majority.

Libertarian big brain over here.

Remember when Libertarians tried to create their own town and it was overrun by bears because they don't know how society works? Hehe

No. They live in their districts and travel to Albany. This isn't like federal legislators. They drive or take the train. They'll crash in Albany sometimes but that's it.

Fuck the rich

Think for yourself bro. A town is collectivist

Oh yeah the flat 29% raises for the layman are going to arrive in our bank accounts with the 20% Christmas bonuses.

Pay increases should be a referendum vote.

''"our democracy""

You forgot the /s

Nah let's all suffer equally

Everyone enjoying their super majority?

the cap is not tied to their salary - it is tied to the existing cap on income for retired state pensioners

it's so the several dozen affected members can decide whether to run again or to keep their outside income

they specifically picked a number for the increase which matches the salary from 1998 plus inflation over the past 24 years

not true, it was delivered so if the Gov does not act then it takes effect

Imagine ever bill that sits on the governors desk going into effect if they didn’t sign it? I bet cuomo wishes he used that excuse for the bail laws lol.

Fuck these assholes. How do I get a raise? I earn it. Like the rest of us. Asshats.

The idea that we pay our legislators less than a first-year law associate explains quite a lot about how fucking dysfunctional our state and federal governments are.

Instead of giving raises to their staff, who should be paid well, they add an extra 35k to their own salary. Some of their staff don't make 35k in a year.

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There's a difference in pocket veto rules based on whether the legislature is in session or not. The Assembly is always in session, so they follow the ten day rule. This means that if the gov does not act within ten days, then the bill goes into effect as if it were signed.

Umm has anyone noticed what a f’ed up system this is? Good night nurse - absurd

How did most people get to know Trump’s name in the first place?

When the city screwed up a simple skating rink project so massively that Trump strolled in, got it fixed, and Ed Koch whined about the unfairness of it all. Completely tone deaf, Koch was.

Trump dined out on that for decades.

Where does a free market preacher come off saying how and where people can associate.

Now if you're saying only public sector unions, that's a different story

Unions are the equivalent of a leech. There is no value created only siphoned from the productive to the unproductive

I now see your username, obvious Ayn Rand troll is obvious

I wonder how they feel about raising the salaries of public workers.

Proving yet again politicians are not our friends.

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Don’t troll yourself bro

"Carl E. Heastie, a Bronx Democrat who serves as Assembly speaker, expressed support for the raise earlier this month, suggesting that just coming to Albany is enough to justify a boost in pay. “People don’t realize the sacrifice that they make being away from their families,” Mr. Heastie said. “I don’t think there’s enough money in the world that could compensate you for being away from your families.”"
Hey, you became a politician out of your own free will. Perhaps he should resign from assembly immediately and get a private sector job instead.
All political positions should pay lower than prevailing wage to encourage turnover and new ideas. Perhaps it will attract diehard do-gooders. Politicians have gotten way too comfortable in their positions and lost touch with their constituents.

Alternatively, just have them indexed to the same % as minimum wage increase. They get 29%, minimum wage goes up 29%.

You have my vote

People often hate that most politicians are wealthy but someone pretty much has to be wealthy to afford to be a politician.

Our votes reps at work. Meanwhile they want to crash the economy to prevent inflation?

We don't have parity pay for H&H hospitals and title 6 is not going to help bring staff to our public hospitals. The same public hospitals that become dumping grounds for unprofitable patients from the richer hospitals.

Jesus $25? There’s 17 year old teenagers working in fast food making more than 15 year veteran nurses saving lives?!