How Much Members of Congress Have Been Paid During Recesses This Year - Newsweek

House members are set to receive roughly $91,051 in salary each, or about $39.6 million collectively, for the 191 days they will not have been in session at the House between January and November 8, 2026.

House Republican leaders canceled the chamber's final scheduled voting day this week, meaning lawmakers will not sit for any votes in Washington for nearly seven weeks before the November 3 midterm elections and not return until November 9.

According to the official House days-in-session calendar, the chamber had been scheduled to meet for about 121 days between January and November 8, 2026, around 39 percent of the 312 calendar days during that period.

Speaker Mike Johnson argued this week that the House has completed its work for now and that members should return to their districts, while critics say Congress is abandoning unfinished business.

The GOP announced that they were cutting short the final legislative week before the midterm elections on Wednesday, allowing lawmakers to head home early to hit the campaign trail ahead of midterms.

The early finish also means that lawmakers will not have to take a vote on impeaching Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth before the November elections.

Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the last two weeks of the September session, saying: “Right now, it almost feels like a pointless exercise for us to continue sending and stacking legislation over there, when members could be in their districts campaigning in this very fateful moment.”

There are 535 voting members of Congress. These include 435 voting members of the House of Representatives who are apportioned by state population, and 100 Senators, with two for each state.

There are also six additional non-voting delegates representing the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa.

The decision to leave the House early was not well received by some lawmakers.

Speaking to Newsweek, South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman said: "Let’s call it what it is. This close to an election, many Members are campaigning. If campaigning takes up the majority of their time, their campaigns should pay them, not taxpayers.

"No successful business pays employees who aren’t doing their jobs. If Members choose campaigning over doing the job taxpayers sent them here to do, taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill."

In a post on X on Wednesday, he wrote that lawmakers “still have work to do.” He said: “Canceling yet another day of votes is unacceptable. The House has now canceled at least 63 scheduled voting days this Congress, including nine days this month alone, and now we're leaving Washington until after the election. The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid.”

Representative Jim McGovern, from Massachusetts, shared this frustration, writing on X: “We’ve only had 72 days in session this year. Under Republican leadership, this is the laziest & least effective Congress in American history.”

Meanwhile, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, who filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth on Tuesday, said that he believed the reason for leaving the House early was to avoid the impeachment vote.

“Why are we canceling session when there’s so much important work to be done? It’s because they want to avoid voting on my Epstein legislation and the impeachment of Hegseth,” Massie wrote.

Newsweek reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson and Reps. Massie, McGovern and Norman for comment.

Members continue to receive their salaries regardless of whether the House is holding floor votes. Congressional offices typically continue constituent casework, district meetings and committee-related duties while lawmakers are away from Washington.

As a result of the early recess, members will now be out of the House for 54 days, this is on top of the 138 days that the House did not meet since the start of the year.

A standard rank-and-file salary is $174,000 a year, working out at around $476 per day and amounting to roughly $91,051 per member for days not in session.

When combined for all 435 House members, this amounts to around $39.6 million spent on salaries while the House is not sitting.

Members of Congress are paid by the U.S. Treasury, meaning their salaries ultimately come from federal tax revenue.

The House is scheduled to return on November 9, six days after Election Day, when lawmakers could return to a very different political reality.

Voters will have decided the midterms on November 3, and depending on the results, some members will know that they are leaving Congress, some will be newly elected and party leaders will have a better idea of who will control the House in the next Congress.

Whatever the outcome of the midterm elections, what will not change is the work waiting for lawmakers when they return, including Massie's privileged impeachment resolution against Hegseth.

Update, 09/17/26 11:29 a.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Representative Ralph Norman.