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by bdhess 3358 days ago
> Given how common it is for members of Congress to become mega millionaires over a few decades on a job that pays ~$200k/yr

Can you provide a source for this? Don't know much about the topic but I've always assumed that, in general, Congressmembers who are wealthy were already wealthy before they were elected to Congress.

2 comments

If you look at the rate of returns on their investments, they would outpace a lot of Wall Street and definitely most index funds.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/mutfund/congr...

From a different article, that study has some odd data points:

> The study found some significant difference based on party membership and seniority, with the Democratic sample beating the market by nearly 9% annually, versus only about 2% annually for the Republican sample.

> And representatives with the least seniority considerably outperformed those with more seniority.

"Congress Tells Court That Congress Can’t Be Investigated for Insider Trading"

https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-inv...