Federal Judicial Pay

An Update on Urgent Need for Action

Federal judicial salaries are woefully inadequate. Over the past 30 years, judges’ salaries have declined in value while the salaries of average American workers have increased 17.5 %. In comparison to their 1969 salaries (when adjusted for inflation), the current salaries of our lower court judges have declined 23.5% in value. The loss in purchasing power is even worse for our Supreme Court justices – their salaries have declined by 37.3 %.

The situation has deteriorated to the point where some federal judges earn less than first-year associates in major law firms—the very same associates who may have clerked here in this building the preceding year. Inadequate and inequitable judicial salaries that don’t even keep pace with inflation are unfair to some of most important public servants.
 

But more importantly, they harm the Federal judiciary by undermining the Constitutional tenets that protect judicial independence. Salary erosion has breached faith with the Constitutional guarantee of an undiminished salary and induced judges to leave the bench prematurely for more lucrative employment.

Consider this: during the 1960s only a handful of Article III judges retired or resigned and, throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, just 118 judges left the bench. Since 1990, however, 77 judges have left the bench—including 22 in the last 30 months.

Of the 77 judges that have left the bench since 1990, 64 took other jobs -- that means 83% left prematurely. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that financial considerations played heavily into their decision to seek other employment.

Legislation has been introduced in Congress and supported by the President that would raise federal judicial salaries by 16.5%. This is a very good first step toward bringing judges salaries up to appropriate levels, and the lawyers of this nation wholeheartedly endorse it. But it is not enough to restore judicial salaries to an adequate and equitable level, and it does not fix the underlying pay-setting mechanisms that perpetuate the problem.

Our joint report offers a series of recommendations that we believe, if enacted, will provide immediate and lasting relief to the recurring problems plaguing judicial pay. First,

Congress should pass the 16.5% pay raise. Congress also needs to ensure that the annual pay adjustment mechanism for judges, members of Congress and high-level Executive Branch officials works automatically.

Section 140 of Public Law 97-92, which requires judges to get the express approval of Congress before they are awarded a standard cost of living adjustment should be repealed. A principal reason for the current problem is that federal judges have only received five COLAs in the last ten years, resulting in a 9.8% decline in compensation in the last decade alone.

Congress should reestablish and properly fund a salary review commission to regularly review and recommend pay rates for members of Congress, top Executive Branch officials and federal judges.