Ever wonder what kind of sweetheart deal one might get after retiring from Congress? Wonder no longer. It's a sweetheart deal indeed, and you and I, the taxpaying public, are stuck with the check.
The recent retirements of ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (CA-11) and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14) are drawing a lot of attention to lavish Congressional retirement plans.
Make sure you're sitting down.
The vast majority of the record number of congressional lawmakers not seeking re-election next year, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), will collect annual pension benefits that cost taxpayers some $38 million per year to payout.
The timing of Greene’s abrupt retirement, as well of the six-figure sum Pelosi will receive after serving nearly 40 years in Congress, have brought attention to the little-known perk for ex-pols and renewed calls to end the program.
“I can’t read her mind, but it certainly seems as if it was timed to make sure she got vested,” Demian Brady, the vice president of research for the National Taxpayer Union Foundation, said of the Georgia Republican’s last day in the House.
Now, granted, Rep. Greene's payout, in and of itself, isn't really overwhelming.
Brady calculated that under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) benefit formula for members of Congress, at age 62, Greene will start collecting her $8,717 per year pension, which the expert noted is “lower than the average.”
Based on actuarial data, Greene’s total pension payouts could amount to more than $265,000 over her lifetime, according to Brady.
The former Speaker, though?
Meanwhile, Pelosi’s estimated pension figure – given the pay bump she received as House speaker and her election to the House before reforms made the system less generous – will be “one of the most substantial” on record for any current or former member of Congress in FERS, Brady noted.
The California Democrat will benefit from an estimated $107,860 per year upon retirement in 2027.
That's a lot of cash for someone who grew mysteriously rich on her husband's stunning stock-trading ventures. There's a whole other story there, on how pillow talk from the Speaker of the House to her stock-trading husband resulted in millions. And if the mental image of pillow talk between Nancy and Paul Pelosi made you queasy, well, you aren't alone.
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Here's what the taxpayers are on the hook for:
The most recent publicly available data shows retirement benefits for former members of Congress totaled more than $38 million in 2022, according to Congressional Research Services.
The average annual annuity received under FERS was $45,276. A separate pension plan under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) – which is closed to lawmakers who began service after 1984 – doled out an average $84,504 to 261 enrollees in 2022.
Senators, we might note, can opt out of FERS; Representatives cannot do so.
So, the question is: Why? While it doesn't apply in all cases - the current Speaker, Mike Johnson (LA-4) is by all reports a man of modest means - members of Congress are often well above the American mean income level, and if they aren't wealthy when they enter Congress, they sure seem to become wealthy with unsettling regularity, once they've been in a few years. Why should the taxpayers be paying for their pensions?
Serving in Congress should be just that - service. Not a career. These people should, in an ideal world (or at least in my ideal world), not receive a penny in pension or benefits when they leave office. That would be an effective term-limiting measure, too, as the incentive to spend a lifetime in Congress, as Nancy Pelosi has done, would be greatly lessened if all they got was a 401(k) like the rest of us.
It's time this program was eliminated. No more generous retirements at taxpayer expense. Let them depend on a 401(k) and Social Security, assuming it still exists in a few more years. We all do it. Members of Congress can too.
Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians like Nancy Pelosi.
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