Automatic pay increases that took effect last month again placed Pennsylvania’s Legislature among the highest paid in the country.
The base annual salary for lawmakers in the state House and Senate is up to about $113,591, under terms set by a 1995 law mandating automatic cost-of-living adjustments for top state officials each year.
A state lawmaker from the North Hills said he wants to change that.
A bill introduced by state Rep. Jeremy Shaffer, R-Pine, would suspend the automatic annual raises any time lawmakers fail to pass a state budget on time — as they have done in 14 of the past 22 years. He also is cosponsoring another bill that would eliminate the automatic raises altogether.
“We have one of the largest, highest-paid legislatures in the country, but we don’t get the results we pay for,” Shaffer said. “Unfortunately the system is rigged to maintain the status quo. Voters have to vote for people who want real reform.”
Pennsylvania’s base pay trails only New York ($142,000) and California ($132,703), according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Pennsylvania, however, has more state lawmakers (253 in the House and Senate) than New York (213) and more than twice as many as California (120).
The average base pay for a state lawmaker in the United States was $47,904 in 2025, according to the NCSL.
Pennsylvania’s pay is up nearly 3.3% from the $110,016 that rank-and-file lawmakers made in the 12-month period ending Nov. 30. The amount of the raise is determined annually by applying the percentage change in the consumer price index in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland areas. Lawmakers do not need to vote to authorize the annual increases.
Over the past decade, the increases have ranged from a low of 0.5% in 2015-16 to a high of 7.8% in 2022-23, according to notices posted in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. Lawmakers froze their pay in 2020-21 because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Lawmakers in leadership positions make more than rank-and-file members. Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, and House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, are slated to make $177,323 over the coming year.
Floor leaders in both chambers — including Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana; Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills; House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery County; and House Minority Leader Jesse Topper, R-Bedford County — are due to make $164,579.
Other Southwestern Pennsylvania lawmakers earning more because they are in leadership positions include House Minority Whip Tim O’Neal, R-South Strabane ($152,287); House Minority Appropriations Chair Jim Struzzi, R-Indiana ($152,287); House Majority Caucus Chair Rob Matzie, D-Ambridge ($137,719); and Senate Majority Caucus Secretary Camera Bartolotta, R-Monongahela ($129,526).
Senate Majority Caucus Chair Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York County, returned her raise to the state on Wednesday, writing a check for $3,317.28.
“I’m returning the automatic (the cost-of-living increase) to the Treasury again because I cannot oppose spending hikes in state government while padding my own pocket,” Phillips-Hill said in a statement.
Phillips-Hall said she does not participate in the state pension program and does not take the health insurance benefits offered to lawmakers. She said she also drives her own vehicle when on state business and does not seek mileage reimbursements for her travel.
Other top officials also received raises of 3.3%, effective Jan. 1.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s salary increased to $253,870, making him the nation’s highest-paid governor. The average salary for a governor in the United States was just more than $167,000 in 2025, according to an analysis by Business Insider.
Lt. Gov. Austin Davis’s salary increased to $213,248 and the salaries of Treasurer Stacy Garrity, Auditor General Timothy DeFoor and Attorney General Dave Sunday went up to $211,219, according to a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
The notice also showed that salaries for cabinet-level secretaries of the largest state agencies increased to $203,095, those heading medium-sized agencies got raises to $192,941, and those heading the smallest agencies saw their pay increase to $182,785.
While some have argued over the years that the increases help attract and retain more qualified officials, Shaffer said it hasn’t translated to better governing — at least as far as passing a budget.
Shaffer’s bill would suspend annual increases for legislators, the governor and the lieutenant governor in any year when the budget isn’t enacted by July 1. The current budget was adopted 135 days late.
“Our most important job as legislators and public officials in Pennsylvania is to complete the state’s budgeting process in a responsible and timely manner. Lengthy delays in budget negotiations have become all too common in recent years, with timely budgets few and far between over the past two decades,” Shaffer wrote in a memo announcing the legislation.
“This legislation would provide both short- and long-term incentives to all parties in the budget negotiations to meet our constitutional budget deadline and to avoid the harms caused by late budgets to public entities across Pennsylvania,” he added.
Shaffer’s bill is cosponsored by three fellow Republicans in the Democratic-controlled House, including state Reps. Jill Cooper of Murrysville and Valerie Gaydos of Sewickley. It was referred to the House Appropriations Committee in late September but has not been brought up for a vote there.
Longtime political activist Gene Stilp said bills like Shaffer’s “look good, but they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on unless there is an organized effort behind it. It needs a massive effort.”
Stilp is perhaps most widely known for using a giant inflatable pink pig as a prop at rallies against what he considers wasteful government spending and other injustices. He began using the pig to protest pay raises approved by lawmakers in the early-morning hours of July 7, 2005. The raises of between 16% and 34% would be rescinded months later due to public outcry, and the following year many lawmakers who voted in favor of the raises either were voted out of office or chose not to seek reelection.
Another Pennsylvania government watchdog, Eric Epstein of the Harrisburg-based Rock the Capital, noted that the minimum wage in Pennsylvania stands at $7.25 an hour, matching the federal rate. In 2009, the last year the minimum wage was raised, state lawmakers earned a base pay of $78,315.
“In a nutshell, that’s what’s wrong with Pennsylvania,” Epstein said.
“Why are we paying these folks not to do their job? Giving lawmakers a bonus not to get the budget done while they fund raise, play golf and travel, is like giving a bank robber a bonus,” Epstein added.
Stilp, who lives in Dauphin County, considers the automatic pay increases to be an “abuse of the public trust.”
“This has been going on for many years, and, to me, it’s an ongoing cancer in the Legislature and there’s no way to cure it,” he said. “Lawmakers might talk reform when they’re running for office, but when they get to Harrisburg, they run to the big pig trough to feed.”