That's essentially what Chief Justice John Roberts said in his year-end report to Congress, according to law.com.
Issuing an eight-page message devoted exclusively to salaries, Roberts says the 678 full-time U.S. District Court judges, the backbone of the federal judiciary, are paid about half that of deans and senior law professors at top schools.
In the 1950s, 65 percent of U.S. District Court judges came from the practicing bar and 35 percent came from the public sector. Today the situation is reversed, Roberts said, with 60 percent from the public sector and less than 40 percent from private practice.
Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.
Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.
The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."
Roberts is correct that attorneys can make more than this in the field. The difference, of course, is that serving on the federal bench is also supposed to be a civic duty and have a certain level of prestige associated with it.
There are areas of the country where $200k is probably only worthy of a middle-class lifestyle, but given that the median household salary in 2004 was $43,389, Roberts probably won't find too much sympathy among the electorate.
Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.
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