An “immediate and significant increase” in the salaries of all senior government officials – especially federal judges – is needed, concludes a new report from the bipartisan National Commission on the Public Service, a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

     “Unless soon revised, the American people will pay a high price for the low salaries we impose on the men and women in whom we invest responsibility for the dispensation of justice,” says the report, Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing the Federal Government for the 21st Century.

     The report decries the comparatively low pay of all senior government officials, adding that “judicial salaries are the most egregious example of the failure of federal compensation policies.”

     Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Chief Judge Deanell R. Tacha testified before the commission in July. Inadequate compensation seriously compromises judicial independence and threatens the ability to attract and retain the best judges for service, the three judicial witnesses said. (See text of testimony.)

     Leonidas Ralph Mecham, director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, had forwarded a 13-page letter to Commission Chairman Volcker in June, detailing the link between an independent judiciary and the compensation afforded judges and judicial staff.

      For more information, visit our Judicial Compensation page.