Congress gets raise as others get boot

WASHINGTON — Corporations across the country are laying off workers by the tens of thousands. State governments are slashing programs and raising taxes to fend off fiscal disaster.

And Congress is giving itself another raise.

The automatic congressional pay raise — an annual rite in the nation's capital — is due to take effect in January and will boost members' salaries from $169,300 to a little more than $174,000, an increase of 2.8 percent.

Legislation to block the raise went nowhere this year, with just 34 of the House's 435 members signing on, and just two of them from New York — Reps. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-Hudson, and John Hall, D-Dover.

Rep. John M. McHugh, R-Pierrepoint Manor, was not a cosponsor but said in a statement that lawmakers should revisit the congressional budget next year.

"The reality is the Democrats never allowed a bill to come to the floor that would have enabled us to reconsider what is currently an automatic pay raise," Mr. McHugh said in a statement. "Right now, we are unaware of what President-elect Obama's budget plan will look like, but I certainly hope Democratic leaders propose starting our savings here at home — in the congressional and federal budgets — before we would consider other steps like raising taxes on hardworking Americans, laying off federal employees, or withholding pay raises for the men and women of our military."

Lawmakers do not have to vote separately on the raise, a provision that dates to 1989. But votes often occur on procedural efforts to strip the raises from spending bills.

While the raise typically causes a brief dust-up from government watchdogs, this time could be different because of the nation's bleak economic condition and rising unemployment. The Council of Citizens Against Government Waste urged Congress to freeze its salary at the start of the new session in January.

"While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise," said the group's president, Tom Schatz, in a press release Thursday.

Congress has turned down the raise six times since 1989, including in 2007. This year was somewhat unusual in that Congress was unable to pass its usual spending bills, and the government is running on a continuing resolution that keeps spending at a roughly even keel through next March.

Lawmakers must revisit the spending levels early next year.

According to Congressional Quarterly, a Capitol Hill magazine, Democrats and Republicans in the House have a tacit agreement that keeps the raise in place, allowing about three fifths of each party's members to vote to keep the raise and the remaining two fifths to vote to take it away. That allowed potentially vulnerable lawmakers to vote to block the raise.

Each party also promised not to use the raise against candidates from the other party, Congressional Quarterly reported, although Democrats broke that pledge in 2006.

Sometimes lawmakers vow to return the amount of their raises. Neither Mrs. Gillibrand's nor Mr. Hall's offices immediately returned inquiries Thursday about their plans.