Judicial Pay

[richlevy]

Apparently, judges are not rich enough.

Roberts said the judiciary will not properly serve its constitutional role if it is restricted to people so wealthy that they can afford to be indifferent to the level of judicial compensation, or to people for whom the judicial salary represents a pay increase.
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.

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."
"Inadequate compensation directly threatens the viability of life tenure, and if tenure in office is made uncertain, the strength and independence judges need to uphold the rule of law -- even when it is unpopular to do so -- will be seriously eroded," Roberts wrote.

So, according to Roberts, people to whom 165k seems like a lot of money aren't fit to be judges, and people who are willing to do it anyway because they already have enough money also aren't fit to be judges.

Also, consider that the federal goverment is one of the last employers with a fully funded pension plan.

Keep in mind that soldiers are not compensated well for what they do. Cops and firefighters are also not well compensated considering the pay given to their private sector counterparts. The public sector has never paid as well as the private sector. Part of this is because some people enter public service to actually serve the public. Another part of this is that public service offers stability, pensions, and job protections not found in the private sector. Just as someone is rewarded for taking risks, there is a financial cost with taking the safe route.