Members of Congress are paid more for their summer break than minimum wage workers earn in an entire year

ABC News has a story up today about how members of Congress work a lot less than the average person. Like 100 days less!

From ABC News:

The House is scheduled to be in session in Washington a total of 133 days this year. The Senate will be in session about the same amount or a few days more.

But if you’re an ordinary American worker with two weeks of vacation and federal holidays off, you’re likely clocking in around 240 days a year at the office.

Now, I took my math requirement as pass/fail in college, so I am uniquely qualified to perform some important calculations here:

With a guaranteed minimum yearly salary of $174,000 and a total of 133 scheduled work days, congresspersons make $1,308.27 a day. That means that Ted Cruz earned more than a grand by reading Green Eggs and Ham and probably peeing into a diaper during his filibuster of the Affordable Care Act. (Ditto for members of the Senate blocking a vote on the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.)

Our elected federal officials also make about $16,000 for their summer breaks. That means that they earn more during the two months when they are not obligated to do any work than a minimum wage worker earns—$15,080—in an entire year.

The federal minimum wage hasn’t increased since 2009. Break down the congressional minimum salary along an eight-hour work day, and the very same people voting, repeatedly, against raising the minimum wage above $7.25 an hour make an average of $163.53 an hour.