If the justices get the same federal pension as other federal employees (and I kinda think they do) then it’s got a spouse benefit of 50% of what the employee’s pension would have been plus a lump sum death benefit of 50% of the employee’s final pay.
Also, Sandra Day O’Connor was retired for 17 years and 10 months, so I’m sure her pension meant something to her. 
Oh, and I had to look it up but the federal life insurance basic option is 1x annual salary rounded up to the next $1,000 plus another $2,000 on top of that. That’s for “most employees” and it’s possible that the SCOTUS justices are not “most employees”.
It’s a little more complicated than that. People aren’t motivated by money so must as they are by power/influence/ability to do what they want.
For most people, money is an excellent proxy for the ability to do what you want. But a lot of public servants have far more power than their private sector counterparts, and that makes up some of the difference. I bet that is a supreme Court Justice wants to go to the hot concert that is sold out, they can get tickets for “list price”, not “scalper price”. And of course they get to put their finger off the scale of justice, deciding cases about all manner of things they care about. What’s the monetary value of that?
I think we should pay government employees enough that they can live in the same neighborhoods as their private-sector friends, and send their kids to the same schools. Honestly, i wish they had the same shitty health insurance issues the rest of us had, maybe they would care more about how broken our system is. But i don’t think we need to pay as many dollars as private industry to keep the compensation comparable.
Well $173K vs 7 figures is not “can afford to live in the same neighborhood”.
Not that I’m advocating for 7 figure SCOTUS pay… just lamenting the shitty situation and unsure how to make it better.
Yeah, i didn’t mean to disagree with you, just add more color.
Worth recognizing that, like POTUS who makes $400,000, SCOTUS can make money without bribes. For example, book deals.
Ketanji Brown Jackson made $3M in a book deal. Amy Coney Barrett made $2M. Gorsuch made $650k for a collection of essays he had written.
Call me crazy, but a $650k+ lump sum plus a nearly $300k salary (varies) seems adequately wealthy, let alone $3M. Maybe it’s not the biggest house in DC. It’s a lot.
Justices also typically aren’t going from lucrative private practice to the court, but rather from lower courts (where they are paid less) or law schools (where they can have side practices and make tons, but less than full time litigators). They decided years ago not to be super wealthy, and if they want something else can leave the system to get it.
For me, $3.3M in one year would be “retired in my early 40s” money.
That amount would very much leave me “not poor”, but I don’t make a habit of buying $267,000 RVs. If I did make such terrible decisions I would likely complain that I don’t make enough money.
They’re not writing books every year, but yes, that’s a nice supplement to their income, for sure.
Eh, lots of upper middle class people buy vacation homes. A $267,000 RV seems like a mobile vacation home. It’s not how I’d choose to spend $267,000 but it also doesn’t seem like a ridiculous choice if that’s how you like to spend your vacation time.
(Even better if someone else loans you the money and then forgives the loan!)
It only is not a ridiculous choice if you can afford it, while Thomas was deeply in debt at the time.
Of course, the choice becomes far more rational if it’s actually just a present in a roundabout way.
I think you mean “more” where you typed “less” and yeah, agreed.
(Or maybe you meant irrational where you said rational? “More rational” or “less irrational” would both make sense.)
While I agree with this, it’s also worth noting that vacation homes tend not to depreciate the way than an RV does.
My vacation money pit has not only not depreciated, but rather doubled in value in the past 9 years.
Sure. They tend to be more than $267,000 too. And you can’t drive them around to different places. As I said, it kind of depends on how you like to spend your vacation time.
That’s $470,000 in today’s dollars.
A second house for someone with a full time job is quite a luxury, you can only use it a few weeks of the year.
To me, this isn’t a typical “upper middle income” purchase.
We probably have different definitions of “upper middle”. According to IRS statistics, about 14% of joint filers in 2020 had AGIs over $200,000. I don’t think the top 14% is “upper middle”, I would call that “upper”. And I don’t think that $200k is enough income that buying a $470,000 vacation house (especially one that is expected to depreciate) would be considered “common”.
I’d call anybody with a full quality second house definitely upper-class. Not so much for a 600 sq. ft. cabin on an acre somewhere super rural. But full agree that just “my vacation house” is not middle class, unless maybe that person is running dangerously short on financial security.
Yeah, I’d say upper class is maybe top 2 or 3%. Upper middle class is maybe 4th - 15th or possibly 20th percentiles.
That is a definition i cannot get behind.
If your AGI is greater than 85% of the population, you are uperclass. Regardless of what statr you live in and if you actually have no class whatsoever in your actions or purchases.
So by your logic the middle class ranges from the 96th to the 4th percentile? That seems a bit broad to me.