Under the terms of Public Law 101-194, the Government Ethics Reform Act of 1989, lawmakers receive an annual adjustment in pay [a cost of living adjustment or COLA] equal to the change in the government's Employment Cost Index for the fourth quarter of the prior calendar year versus the year before that (this constitutes a one-year time lag between when the pay raise is measured and when it actually takes effect). An automatic provision is made for this pay hike each year, and is self-implementing without any specific vote by Congress (i.e., passage of the overall Treasury appropriations bill enables the raise to occur). However, Members of Congress can, by majority vote, block the pay increase from taking place. This occurred for salary hikes slated for 1994-1997 and for 1999.
https://www.ntu.org/ratecongress/page/do-members-of-congress-get-automatic-pay-hikes-colas
About Member of Congress Salaries
Congress is required by Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution to determine its own pay.
Pay adjustments can be enacted through stand-alone legislation or through a commission process, but most commonly member salary increases are implemented through an automatic annual adjustment process in which members receive an automatic “cost of living” allowance increase.
The salary increase takes effect on January 1 of each year unless Congress votes to decline it, though individual members can opt to decline an automatic annual pay increase. By law, members may not receive an increase greater than the increase in the base pay of General Schedule (GS) employees. Both houses of Congress voted not to raise member salaries for 2010-15.
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