- The North Carolina General Assembly currently pays the fifth-lowest legislative salary of all states and U.S. territories
- The General Assembly should raise legislative salaries to enable more North Carolinians to be financially able to run for office
- An increase in taxpayer burden due to increasing salaries can be offset by reducing the length of legislative sessions
This is Part One of a four-part series covering our findings in “Reforming North Carolina’s General Assembly.” Part Two will cover session limits, Part Three will deal with legislative leadership term limits, and Part Four will propose greater transparency at the General Assembly.
When contemplating a job opportunity, an individual must weigh many factors before accepting it. For example, what is the time commitment of the job, what are the responsibilities, and how much does it pay? What is the opportunity cost for taking the job? Candidates running for any public office must also weigh these factors and more.
In a new study, “Reforming North Carolina’s General Assembly,” the John Locke Foundation’s Civitas Center for Public Integrity examines several issues present within the North Carolina legislature. One of those is the problem of high opportunity costs of being a legislator owing to the General Assembly’s inconsistent session lengths and low salaries for members. These factors combine to make it extremely difficult for the majority of the population to serve in the legislature, significantly limiting the scope of potential candidates.
How North Carolina’s Legislative Pay Compares with Other States
Of 41 states and five U.S. territories that provide legislators an annual salary, North Carolina’s salary of $13,951 ranks fifth-lowest. Even among the other states that operate under a hybrid legislative model (a part-time legislature in which members spend more than two-thirds of a full-time job in their roles as legislators), North Carolina’s annual legislative pay is still $18,499.50 less than the median salary ($32,400.50).
Along with low base pay, North Carolina legislators also receive a significantly lower mileage reimbursement than the standard federal rate (currently at $0.67 as of 2024) at only $0.29 per mile and only $104 daily per diem for food and lodging during session.
Also, the 2023 and 2024 sessions lasted a combined 48 weeks, leaving little time for many occupations. This much time away from one’s regular job dramatically limits those who can serve in legislative office either to those in higher-income positions with flexible working hours or to people who are retired.
This combination of low income and high time demands favors a legislature consisting mostly of lawyers, wealthy retirees, and people from other occupations with highly flexible hours.
Raising Legislator Base Salary
Despite significant inflation over the last 30 years, North Carolina’s legislative salaries have been the same since 1995: $13,951. The report included a survey of active members of the legislature. Asked about legislative pay, all 39 respondents said it was too low.
Nearly half of all survey participants indicated that the lack of financial security was the largest barrier to serving in the state legislature, with the second largest being the time commitment required for the job.
Serving as a legislator requires long hours with limited compensation. For that reason, we see retirees and people in occupations with flexible work schedules becoming more prevalent in the legislature. Finding people who can afford to serve is becoming increasingly difficult. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (71.8 percent) said that the current legislative salaries made recruiting candidates “much harder.”
One way to expand the number of people who can financially hold legislative office in the state would be to increase the base salary of the state legislature. The report suggests raising it to $32,400.50 a year (the median compensation of other hybrid legislative states). This change would still put North Carolina legislators below the median income of when including full time legislatures state legislators ($38,855.50 per year).
Potential Cost-Limiting Factors
Raising legislative pay is typically a political landmine. Voters across the United States tend to look unfavorably upon legislative salary increases and have punished legislators who voted to raise their own salaries. North Carolina is no exception. Legislators supporting such legislation would likely undergo attacks from political opposition for using taxpayer money to give themselves raises. Such attacks are typically effective, especially during times of financial instability.
Nevertheless, raising legislative pay would not necessarily mean a larger burden on taxpayers. The report shows how, by restructuring how legislators receive funding, the additional money allocated to legislative compensation could be limited or even cost-neutral. This could be accomplished by marrying legislative salary increases to a reduction in legislative session days to lower legislators’ per-diem compensation.
The report recommends session limits and shows that, under those limits, the General Assembly would free up substantial amounts of funding that could be used to increase legislative salaries to an estimated $20,533.70 and remain revenue neutral.
Conclusion
An increase in base salary and a limitation of the time required to perform the duties as a member of the legislature would open the possibility of running for office to more of North Carolina’s citizens. By implementing a session limit, legislators’ annual salaries could be increased up to $20,533.70 with no impact on the money allocated to the legislature from the state. This transfer in the funding model would place North Carolina above six more states in legislative salaries, moving the state to the 11th lowest in legislative salary (up from the fifth lowest)
While an increase to $32,400.50 would be ideal to move the state into the median of other hybrid state legislatures, a compromise legislators could meet is a salary increase to $26,000. A salary of $26,000 would be comparable to the 2022 per-capita income of North Carolinians at $37,641 once you factor in the time requirements of a hybrid legislature and additional per diem payments.
Currently, the time required and opportunity costs of serving as a legislator are too high for people in most professions, narrowing the number of people who could reasonably serve in the state legislature. Increasing legislator salaries to somewhere between $20,533.70 and $32,400.50 and adjusting mileage and per-diem compensation would help mitigate that.
