[retrac]

How much could a good lawyer with a long and distinguished career make in the private market? That's how much we should be paying our judges. If you want the best you have to at least be moderately competitive with what's on offer. I have a similar opinion about legislators -- we probably want top tier doctors and executives and lawyers as our legislators. Being elected to office should not be a step down in their lifestyle.

I see private compensation for elite talent being completely out of whack -- the prices the public service must compete with -- as basically a separate issue.

Historically, a generous salary for legislators and various other high offices was part of the progressive/left platform in both the UK and France. They weren't paid before the 19th century, ensuring only the independently wealthy could hold those offices.

[SoftTalker]

It may be idealistic, but I think that those elected to office or appointed to influential positions such as judges should do so largely out of a sense of public service instead of personal enrichment. For people who are motivated by greed or power, no amount of compensation will be enough, they will always be tempted to to increase their power and wealth by taking bribes or political favors.

Pay them a respectable salary but you do not and should not try to match what the private sector pays. It not the same playing field and should not attempt to be.

[lumb63]

I don’t understand this position. It feels to me like you’re proposing we financially exploit those who are magnanimous and duty-driven enough to tolerate public service. Do you have the same opinion regarding other organizations operating for public good, rather than financial self interest?

For instance, what you’re saying feels logically equivalent to me to saying we should tax charities more heavily since they aren’t driven by greed, or that we should underpay active duty military personnel since they’re driven more by love for their country than by self interest. It seems to me that it should be the exact opposite, and we should incentivize people to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Underpaying people who choose to enter a certain sector because of a personally held belief that they ought to be financially unmotivated, then ceding massive power to those people and allowing them to take bribes, seems to miss the forest for the trees.

EDIT: I’m also curious how you rectify your position with the empirical evidence that our current system, wherein public service is financially discouraged, has led to direct and indirect bribery and corruption in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. It seems to me that the current system isn’t working, and leaning further into the aspect that makes it not work is not a good idea. Maybe a more fruitful route would be reducing the power of individual representatives so that there is less incentive to bribe them, or outright banning the quid-pro-quo agreements that run rampant in our country currently, like prohibiting regulators from working for companies in the industry they regulated after their time in office.

[csnover]

I guess the OP thinks anyone sufficiently motivated by financial self-interest such that they won’t want the job unless it pays ‘enough’ is also someone who is going to be more open to bribery because they value personal wealth too much. I can see both sides on this but I don’t think it’s unreasonable.

People who are drawn to positions of power and also highly motivated by personal wealth seem like particularly bad choices if you want to avoid corruption, so keeping the salary low may sufficiently disincentivise this sort of person from entering the public sector.

On the other hand, public sector work is harder in many ways, so not providing equal or superior compensation may discourage many people who are entirely scrupulous but not foolish enough to both take on the extra burden of public sector work and make less money at the same time.

> It feels to me like you’re proposing we financially exploit those who are magnanimous and duty-driven enough to tolerate public service.

I understand that it may seem foolish or unjust, but it feels unreasonable to me to suggest it’s exploitative to pay someone a 97th-percentile salary[0] just because it’s not commensurate with private sector peers in a highly compensated industry.

> For instance, what you’re saying feels logically equivalent to me to saying we should tax charities more heavily since they aren’t driven by greed, or that we should underpay active duty military personnel since they’re driven more by love for their country than by self interest.

The problem as it applies to judges and legislators is that they represent a very small group of people with the ability to make high-stakes decisions that impact a large number of people, and their decisions are enforced by the power of the state.

Charities don’t have the power of the state behind their decisions, and personnel within the military apparatus tend not to have much individual power, so the incentives for corruption are much more limited (and if it does happen, much less impactful).

> It seems to me that the current system isn’t working, and leaning further into the aspect that makes it not work is not a good idea.

Is there some proof that under-compensation is the main source of the corruption in the current system? I have no evidence either way, but my sense is that it is not.

[0] https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ at $250k

[dralley]

>financially exploit

$274,000 doesn't feel like financial exploitation to me, even if it's below market rate.

[Applejinx]

This. You cannot simply normalize graft on the grounds that somebody might exist who can out-bribe a government. Any more than you normalize murder because everybody eventually dies some way or other.

Having it act like the same playing field got us in this mess. I'll note there are some supreme court justices who apparently don't take bribes or suggest their power should be supplemented by enough bribery to equal that of the best private sector lawyers and/or the best mob bosses…

[darth_avocado]

1. Supreme Court justices historically haven’t been the best, just the most cozy with politicians

2. Even if Justices were paid $10M, the corruption wouldn’t go away, because greed never goes away

Instead of focusing on the fact that justices are taking bribes because their salary is modest, therefore we need to pay them more, we should focus on nominating justices who don’t have such weak morals and ethics.

[ilovetux]

> How much could a good lawyer with a long and distinguished career make in the private market? That's how much we should be paying our judges.

That would maybe make sense if we were able to reign in their conflicts of interest. The private market would set a fiduciary duty on many lawyers in a number of capacities, but nothing like that exists for the SCOTUS.

As it stands now, there is no way to hold the justices (or really any elected or appointed official) accountable.

[scrubs]

I'd support this (higher pay mabe 5x to 10x) provided:

- no security trading

- recuse if conflicted

- cleanup of political fund raising

- criminal penalties on violation

You want control and just compensation? Can do. But not without commensurate accountability.

[amrocha]

I don't disagree with you, but at some point the number stops mattering. What's the difference in lifestyle between 300K and 500K? 500K and 1M?

And even if there is a difference, is that worth the opportunity cost of paying everyone else a little bit better?

It's not a very popular opinion, but there should be a maximum salary imo. Beyond a certain number money is a means of acquiring power and influence, and it feels wrong to reward people with that. Set a maximum to give people something to work harder for, but without inadvertently giving individuals the power to subvert democracy through money.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

$300k - after taxes - is not buying you a lavish lifestyle of in most major cities.

It's probably not even getting you comfortably into one of the better neighborhoods, unless your partner is the bread winner.

Chicago is one of the most affordable major cities in the US - and $300k isn't gonna do more than have you comfortably living in a small condo in the better neighborhoods.

[tptacek]

Huh? $300k/yr will get you pretty much anything you want in Chicagoland. By standard consumption patterns, that's an $800k house. An $800k Chicago house is quite large. It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> It's also a 4-bdr condo even in some parts of the Loop.

The average $800k+ condo in the loop is 2 bedrooms.

Sure, maybe there's a couple rare 4-bdrm's for $800k - but there's a reason they are so much cheaper...

At the moment - there does not appear to be a single 4-bedroom listed on Zillow for less than <$800k: https://www.zillow.com/the-loop-chicago-il/?searchQueryState...

In fact - there's not one listed above $800k either...

There are only 3 3bedroom condos for less than $800k - and the average HOA would adjust the price to well over $1M - making them not affordable...

I would not say if you can find 1 condo in a decent neighborhood that's semi-affordable at $300k that somehow my point is refuted that $300k - after taxes - is really not that much money...

[tptacek]

I encourage anyone who's interested in this weird claim to just go to Redfin and punch 750k-850k condo into the search, and shop around. If you're not from around here, do take note that living in the actual Loop is not something people generally do! It's the Chicago equivalent of owning a 4 bedroom condo in Nolita.

Where you'd probably actually buy, with $800k burning a hole in your pocket, is Wicker/Bucktown, Lakeview, Hyde Park or Roscoe Village. If you were price conscious, you'd buy in Lincoln Square or Jeff Park.

$800k will also buy you a pretty fantastic house in Chicago. Of course, it won't buy you a house in the Loop, because houses don't go in the Loop. When people in the HN demographic think about the parts of Chicago they think are high-status, they're not thinking like a typical house buyer, who has kids, cares about the local schools, and wants a yard. Those people are buying in Beverly, Portage Park, and Jeff Park. Houses there top out at $800k; I had a sinking feeling looking at Redfin listings there (oh shit, am I wrong about this?) untiL I realized I had to drop the lower limit way below $750k to see all the available houses.

I assume this thread is about how hard it is to survive in major American cities on $300k/yr. I think you're generally doing OK just about anywhere in the US at $300k/yr, but I assure you you're doing well in Chicago making that.

[kasey_junk]

There is a 5 bed, 3 bath 3000 sq ft Victorian on my block in Hyde Park listed at $659k that I bet will go closer to 600.

It’s in good shape, doesn’t need any major work and is in the desirable school zone.

https://redf.in/tweamI

[Eumenes]

imo, 1/3rd of that is more than enough to be 'comfortable'. Certainly enough for a small apartment or roommate situation, yearly international vacation and multiple domestic, mix of eating out (3-4 times per month) and cooking at home (packing lunches is required imo), going to a few concerts/museums/plays per month, cheap gym membership, etc. Add a spouse w/ shit income into the mix + children, okay, not good ... but those are choices ;)

[bamfly]

$300k (household) isn't upper-middle, before the term became diluted to mean "middle, but with a little left over every month"—the upper-middle of Fussell's Class and The Official Preppy Handbook

- Good private school for a kid or two (guess what one of the bribes to Thomas was...). Not gonna get away with much less than $25k/yr/kid, there, and it goes up from there.

- Long vacations expensive places a couple times a year (again...)

- House somewhere nice (notably, however, the public schools can be shit, which saves a little money here)

- Country club membership, or similar

- Don't have to do, at least, the ~50% of chores you hate the most (you pay to have them done). Ditto the worst parts of childcare.

- (optional, but recommended) Attendance of fancy functions (esp. e.g. charity events–what's the point of it all if you don't feel fancy?)

- Second property with housing on it (doesn't have to be lavish, but can't be quite as shit as a hillbilly fishing shack, which even poor country folk sometimes have)

- (optional, but recommended) Any money left over after that.

That's gonna be $400k+, household, in a cheap but not crazy cheap market (who wants to be fancy in truly bum-fuck nowhere? Though your vacation property might be there...) in 2023. Bare minimum ([EDIT] that won't get you much of the "optionals", I mean, and the rest is gonna be teetering right on the edge of having to start cutting items—and then, only if you're somewhere relatively low COL).

You aren't living, to a certain social class, if you start having to sacrifice much of that. That's how you're supposed to live.

[tptacek]

I don't know anything about the broader argument here. I responded to a comment that said that $300k/yr would only get you a small place in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Chicago. That's categorically false. Mortgage calculators are premised on other expenses scaling with your housing cost, and capture the other bulletpoints ("country club membership", really?).

Someone with a $300k/yr income will end up with an extraordinarily nice home, by any standards, in Chicago.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

$800k is not getting you anything spectacular in the nicer neighborhoods in Chicago unless you're looking at 1 and maybe 2 bedroom condos.

The median condo is not particularly great - and it goes for ~$660k in most of the nicer neighborhoods.

The median house is well over $800k in the nicer neighborhoods.

And, again, Chicago is one of the most affordable cities in the US.

[bamfly]

> ("country club membership", really?)

Yeah, I know. I wasn't raised part of that class and don't hang out with many people in it, either :-)

Books I've read on the topic and the handful of people I know in it, yeah, that's just what you do if you're in That Set. Country clubs.

[fbdab103]

A household income of $220k puts you in the 95th percentile of income in Chicago[0]. Is the bar for comfortable that you get to rub elbows with Bezos?

[0] https://statisticalatlas.com/place/Illinois/Chicago/Househol...

[onlyrealcuzzo]

No, the bar for comfortable is being able to afford a decent place to raise a family in a decent neighborhood.

I'm not sure why we think this is only something for people who rub elbows with Bezos or for people who bought a house 10 years ago.

[amrocha]

If you don't think you can do that with 300K per year then idk what to tell you, your accounting looks very different from mine

[JumpCrisscross]

> What's the difference in lifestyle between 300K and 500K? 500K and 1M?

Pretty massive, particularly when it comes to taking vacations and bringing friends who can’t afford them with you. $300k barely permits that domestically. $1 or 2mm lets you do that comfortably all over the world. Or, alternatively, single handedly saving restaurants you love or a buddy’s small business.

[amrocha]

"Saving" a business isn't really a lifestyle thing, that's more of an investment really. Realistically, your life isn't meaningfully worse if you find a new restaurant to go to.

Paying for friends to vacation with you is a very good one though. But idk, I feel like you can extend that so far that it feels like a copout. For example, maybe you can afford a nice home on 300K, but you can't buy your mom a nice home as well. And you can't pay your brothers student loans. And you can't gift them a car every couple years.

That's not your quality of life, that's paying for someone else to live the same lifestyle as you. At that point I'd just argue for raising wages across the board so that you don't feel the need to pay your friends, they just want to go on vacation with you.

[Applejinx]

Why do you have to have ultimate power and oversight of an entire branch of government AND flit comfortably all over the world?

Shouldn't ultimate power be its own reward? That and ten times the salary of most people…

[JumpCrisscross]

> Why do you have to have ultimate power and oversight of an entire branch of government AND flit comfortably all over the world?

I don't think SCOTUS judges need a multimillion-dollar salary. Just pointing out that low single-digit millions is well below the threshold past which spending becomes performative.

[swader999]

You get into Nanny zone and hiring out all your chores with more time available.

[amrocha]

I used to that for the most part already on a third of the income (for a 2 bedroom apartment and no kids to be fair).

Biweekly maid service where they clean the dishes, the house, and do laundry. It wouldn't be much more expensive to change that to weekly and include cooking too if you wanted.

If you wanted to get a full time nanny though that's probably out of reach, but I don't understand why you even had children if you're just gonna pay someone else to raise them for you.

[swader999]

Agree, I never desired that either. I also like learning how to do repairs and renos to my house. Although I'd hire out the drywall next time.

[johndhi]

To answer your question, lawyers of the capacity of the SCOTUS justices could expect to make about 4 million a year.

[Kye]

What's the value of a lifetime appointment?

[epistasis]

Depends a lot on whether they can take bribes, accept gifts, etc. during that appointment.

[Applejinx]

AS the final arbiter of the legal system…

[mistrial9]

" good lawyer " ??