A drop in the state's median household income led to the salary reduction.
Massachusetts lawmakers will get a pay cut this year, in accordance with a state law that links legislators’ salaries to the state’s median household income. Governor Deval Patrick’s office announced the drop in wages this week. “As required by Article CXVIII of the Amendments to the Constitution, for the purpose of adjusting the base compensation of members of the General Court, we have ascertained, from the federal census American Community Survey and reports of average weekly wages, that the median household income for the Commonwealth for the preceding two-year period decreased by 1.8 percent,” Patrick said in a Jan. 2 letter to State Treasurer Steven Grossman. The pay cut amounts to about $1,000 annually from legislators’ current …
