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In 2012, an amendment to the Alabama state constitution was successfully passed, changing how annual compensation for state legislators is determined and adjusted. Amendment 8 removed the legislature’s ability to alter its own compensation, instead tying the basic compensation for Alabama state legislators to the median household income in the state.
While legislators can no longer vote on their own salary increases, Amendment 8 has largely resulted in steady increases for state politicians’ salaries. Although it initially cut legislators’ pay in 2015, there have only been two years since then where the legislature did not receive a raise under the new policy.
For 2024, legislators’ salaries increased to $59,674 after the household income grew by more than 10 percent. And as the average household income continues to rise in the state, so too will the compensation for Alabama’s state senators and representatives going into 2025.
According to National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Alabama’s legislature is considered neither full-time, nor part-time, but rather a “hybrid” model where legislators are estimated to devote around 74 percent of a full-time job to their legislative duties. The average pay for a hybrid legislator in the U.S. is around $41,110.
However, under Amendment 8, Alabama’s legislators have consistently made significantly more than that average, and it appears that they will continue to do so in 2025, as the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent statistics report the average household income in the state to be around $62,212.
That would put Alabama legislators nearly $20,000 ahead of the next-highest-paid legislature in the region next year, with Arkansas currently paying its legislators a salary of $44,356. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee all pay their legislators between $20,000 – $30,000 annually. North Carolina legislators make $13,951 and South Carolina lawmakers are paid $10,400. Kentucky legislators are paid per session day, receiving between $11,200-$12,200 during odd years where they have 60-day sessions, and around half of that during even years where they have 30-day sessions.
Aside from Mississippi’s part-time legislature, the rest of these Southeastern legislatures are considered “hybrid” like Alabama’s. Clearly there is substantial variance in how much hybrid legislators are paid state-to-state, with Alabama’s lawmakers decisively claiming the title of the most expensive legislators in the Southeast.
And while Kentucky legislators have their pay directly tied to how much they work in a given year, state politicians in Alabama are paid according to the median household income of their constituents no matter how much time they spend in Montgomery. By and large, this means annual raises for Alabama’s lawmakers.
Although Amendment 8 eliminated the conflict of interest associated with state legislators deciding their own pay, it also effectively made Alabama’s lawmakers some of the most highly-paid non-full-time legislators in the country. In fact, if Alabama’s state legislators’ salaries do rise to $62,212 in 2025, then they will surpass Washington’s lawmakers to become the highest paid hybrid legislators in the nation.
Meanwhile, working Alabamians are turning to collective action and union organization in order to advocate for wage increases to keep up with the rising cost of living. From autoworkers, to longshoremen, to AT&T employees, workers across the state have been actively fighting for better pay as they do not have the good fortune of their salaries being tied to a steadily rising median household income.
