Editorial: Automatic state pay increases aren't fair to the people

Asking for a raise isn’t easy.

Well, asking for one might be, but actually getting one is different. For many, it involves sitting down with your boss and justifying not only the job you are doing but also its increased value over what you are being paid. Maybe it happens during your annual review, when many supervisors are already prepared to break the news that, although you’re doing a great job, there’s no money in the budget for a higher paycheck.

If you’re part of a union, there’s the process of contract negotiation and possibly going on strike to get the pay raise you say you deserve. When you unionize, you have to wait for those contracts to come up for renewal before you can go back to the bargaining table.

Then there are people whose jobs fall under state law.

A 1995 law tied automatic cost of living increases to the salaries of state lawmakers as well as the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor general, treasurer and judges from the chief justice of the state Supreme Court to magisterial district judges.

For years, that increase has been just a touch here and there. Like people lucky enough to get a raise at their annual review, it has averaged around 1% to 3%.

However, this year’s inflation is changing the cost of living considerably. Tied to the Department of Labor’s consumer price index, salaries will go up 7.8%.

The salaries of judges and justices and executive elected officers will take big jumps. But what is maddening is the legislative pay increases because it is the lawmakers who made the law. They put this process in place.

In 2023, the average representative or senator will make $7,400 a year more than in 2022. That’s on top of a 5.6% increase received this year.

The two-year increase is the equivalent of a part-time job helping an average Pennsylvanian power through high inflation. Instead of doing some gig work for Instacart or picking up shifts as a cashier, the 253 lawmakers — who could look at this law as unfair and do something about it — will just quietly cash their checks.

It is bad enough that they don’t take steps to be more accountable for their per diems or transparent with their expenses. They won’t pass a gift ban, so bribery is de facto legal.

But, on top of all that, they never have to go to the boss, humbly requesting a raise. The raises just happen.

Would they pass a law requiring other employers to do that? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

So is requiring taxpayers to simply accept that these state paychecks escalate consistently without arguments for belt-tightening and cutbacks that happen with the annual budget.

The people deserve better. Lawmakers deserve to have to stand up and ask for their increase instead of just collecting it.