Connecticut State Representative Salary and Benefits: Pension, Mileage

A Connecticut state representative earns a base salary of $43,600 per year for the 2025–2026 legislative term, with leadership and committee posts paying more. That figure applies equally to House members and state senators under Connecticut General Statutes Section 2-8, and it will hold through the end of 2026 before the next automatic adjustment.¹²

What Leadership and Committee Roles Pay

Legislators in leadership don’t get a stipend layered on top of the base. They get a single higher salary that replaces it. After the January 2025 adjustment, the tiers set by Section 2-8(c) are:²

Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro Tempore: $56,680
Majority and Minority Leaders in both chambers: $54,500
Committee chairs (except the Joint Committee on Legislative Management): $50,685
Rank-and-file members: $43,600

Deputy speakers, deputy leaders, assistant leaders, whips, and ranking members of joint standing committees sit at their own tiers between committee-chair pay and the base rate.¹ Every tier moves together under the same biennial formula that governs the base salary.³

Expense Allowances and Mileage

On top of salary, House members receive a flat $4,500 annual expense allowance, and senators receive $5,500. Both figures come from Section 2-8(b) and have been unchanged since 1999.²

Section 2-15 also authorizes a per-mile transportation allowance for travel between home and the State Capitol, committee meetings, or public hearings anywhere in Connecticut. The Joint Committee on Legislative Management sets the rate and the State Comptroller issues the payments. For reference, the federal standard mileage rate for 2026 is 72.5 cents per mile.⁴

Federal tax law also gives state legislators a special deduction option for living expenses. A legislator whose home district sits more than 50 miles from the capitol can skip receipt-tracking and use a deemed-expense calculation: legislative days multiplied by either the state or federal per diem rate, whichever is greater, capped at 110 percent of the federal rate.⁵

Health Insurance and Pension

Legislators get access to the same group health plans offered to other state employees, covering medical, dental, and vision, with the state paying a share of the premium. They are also eligible for the State Employees Retirement System, a defined-benefit pension calculated from salary history and years of service.

These benefits sit outside the biennial pay-adjustment formula. Section 2-9c explicitly excludes health, pension, and other benefits from the ECI recalculation, so those pieces of the compensation package follow their own rules and collective bargaining agreements.³ The value matters because the General Assembly is classified as a hybrid legislature, and most members carry outside income.⁶

When the Paycheck Arrives

Legislators aren’t on the biweekly cycle that most Connecticut state employees use. The State Comptroller’s Office pays them monthly, issuing one check near the start of each month for the prior month’s work.⁷ Standard deductions for taxes, retirement contributions, and health premiums come out automatically.

How the Salary Got to $43,600

The base sat at $28,000 for more than two decades, frozen since the late 1990s. Inflation cut its real value roughly in half over that stretch. Public Act 22-85 broke the freeze, raising the base to $40,000 effective January 4, 2023, and building in an automatic adjustment so future increases wouldn’t require a standalone vote on legislator pay.⁸

Under Section 2-9c, the executive director of the Office of Legislative Management recalculates pay every two years using the percentage change in the federal Employment Cost Index for wages and salaries over the preceding 24 months.³ The first ECI adjustment took effect on January 8, 2025, moving the base from $40,000 to $43,600.² The next recalculation is due by January 1, 2027.

How Connecticut Compares to Other States

At $43,600, Connecticut sits in the middle of the national range for legislative pay. Base salaries elsewhere run from as low as $100 per year in New Hampshire, where the job is essentially volunteer, to more than $140,000 in full-time legislatures like New York and California. Connecticut’s General Assembly typically demands more than two-thirds of a full-time workload, but the salary alone isn’t enough for most members to give up outside employment.⁶

1
Justia. Connecticut Code 2-8 – Compensation and Expenses of Members and Officers of the General Assembly
2
Connecticut General Assembly. Legislator Compensation Since 1967
3
Justia. Connecticut Code 2-9c – Adjustment to Compensation of Members of the General Assembly
4
Connecticut Workers’ Compensation Commission. Mileage Reimbursement Rate Rises
5
Internal Revenue Service. When State Legislators Can Deduct Living Expenses
6
National Conference of State Legislatures. Full- and Part-Time Legislatures
7
Connecticut Office of the State Comptroller. 2026 State of Connecticut Payroll Schedule
8
Connecticut General Assembly. Public Act 22-85 – An Act Concerning the Compensation of Legislators and Constitutional Officers