Alabama’s 140 state lawmakers will get $5,761 raises in 2024 because the state’s median household income rose in 2022.
Starting Jan. 1, legislators will earn $59,674, a 10.69% increase from this year, according to the State Personnel Department.
Since 2015 their pay has been tied to the state’s median household income. A 2012 voter-approved amendment that was initially a pay cut for many lawmakers put their salaries at $42,849 in 2015. Since then, they’ve received raises each year except two. The household earning figure comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Republicans who advocated for the constitutional amendment said it would save the state money and take politics out of politicians’ pay. In 2007, the then-Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a 61% pay raise, overriding the veto of then-Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican. Backlash over that raise, which put legislative salaries at $49,500 but also allowed for automatic annual increases in pay, helped the GOP take over the Legislature in 2010.
The 2012 amendment allows most lawmakers to be reimbursed more for travel to and from Montgomery.
In-state travel for the Legislature, including employees, went from $40,152 in fiscal 2014 to $1.15 million in fiscal 2023, according to spending records available at open.alabama.gov.
Alabama’s lawmakers are considered a hybrid legislature – not full-time, but more than part-time. They do most of their legislating during a regular session once a year, meeting usually three days a week for 15 weeks. Occasionally, they’ll meet in a shorter, governor-called special session, as happened in July when they had to redraw the state’s congressional map.
Nationwide, the median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a 2.3 percent decline from 2021, according to the census bureau.