On Wednesday evening, following pressure from President-elect Donald Trump and presidential adviser Elon Musk, House Republicans revolted against a last-minute continuing resolution (CR) that would have extended government funding through March 14, 2025. The bill, which clocked in at more than 1,500 pages, featured dozens of add-ons including disaster relief funding, a jurisdiction transfer for D.C.’s RFK stadium, and commitments to rebuild the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
Also included in the CR was a small but controversial provision that would have raised salaries for members of Congress in 2025. The pay raise sparked widespread accusations online—including from Musk—that members were using the emergency funding bill to bump their salaries by almost 40 percent. Musk, the owner of X and co-chair of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency advisory body, retweeted a post claiming that congressional pay would increase to $243,300.
Dozens of other viral posts made the same claim. “Included in the 1,547 page CR bill is a pay raise for Congress. They currently receive $174,000, as well as reimbursements for meals and lodging,” reads one X post with more than 180,000 views. “Here’s a piece of insanity from this CR: Congress is trying to give themselves a raise to $243,300 a YEAR!” reads another post on Facebook.
The claim is false. A provision in the failed CR would have increased salaries for members of Congress, but only by 3.8 percent.
Congressional salaries have remained the same—$174,000—for more than 15 years. In 1989, the Ethics Reform Act established a formula based on public sector wages that automatically adjusts congressional pay yearly to keep up with cost-of-living increases. Congress, however, has blocked this automatic increase from taking effect since January 2009, when salaries were increased by 2.8 percent to their current level.
In September, Congress passed a CR that included language blocking this automatic wage increase for another year. However, the new CR removed this language, meaning if it had passed, members would have received a pay raise of $6,600—or 3.8 percent—in January 2025, increasing their salaries from $174,000 to $180,600.
Where does the $243,300 figure cited by the posts come from? According to a report by the CRS, this is what members’ salaries would have risen to by 2024 had Congress not frozen its automatic salary increases since 2009. However, this is not the wage that members would earn if their automatic pay increase for 2025 was unfrozen.
The Dispatch Fact Check has requested comment from Musk.
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