Senate clears way for annual pay raise

WASHINGTON -- The Senate has used one of the first votes of its lame-duck session to accept a pay raise for the fourth consecutive year.

The Senate, without debate, used its second vote on Wednesday to reject 58-36 a measure by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would have denied the congressional pay raise.

With the slumping economy and financial markets, job layoffs and federal budget deficits, "this is the wrong time for Congress to give itself a pay hike," Feingold said in a statement.

The House cleared the way for the raise in July.

With the 3.1 percent pay raise, senators and representatives will make $154,700 next year instead of the $150,000 earned this year. Lawmakers' salaries have gone up $18,000 since the end of 1999.

Under a 1989 law, congressional cost-of-living pay raises pegged to inflation go into effect automatically unless lawmakers vote to block them.

The 3.1 percent pay raise, which would go into effect in January, would also apply to more than 1,000 top executive branch officials, including the vice president and members of the congressional leadership.

The president's salary of $400,000 a year is unaffected by the congressional increase.

The first members of Congress received $6 a day.

In 1855, compensation was set at $3,000 a year. It hit $10,000 in 1935, $60,000 in 1979, and went above $100,000 in 1991.

The pay level stalled at $133,600 during the mid-1990s with lawmakers wary of giving themselves a raise when the federal budget was in deficit, but it has risen steadily since then.