About that congressional pay

Some time ago, early nineties or late eighties, at my age it all runs together, I thought of a new way to figure Congressional pay. At the time, the minimum wage hadn't been raised in years and people who really were trying to play by the rules were slipping further and further behind. Bush the Elder even proposed a sub-minimum wage for food service workers.

My idea was for a constitutional amendment that would define the pay of members of Congress, the President, Vice President, Members of the cabinet, and a few other appointed high positions (today I would add the Supreme Court) not in dollars, but in multiples of the minimum wage. No one gets a raise unless everyone gets a raise. And, to keep an especially mean Congress from foregoing a raise just to screw the poor, my plan included a trigger. If Congress doesn't act to adjust the minimum wage during a two year session, the minimum wage goes up by the rate of inflation plus one tenth of one percent, but the rulers salary stays the same (that is, the formula for their pay adjusts down).