br41nLESS t1_j2936qz wrote on December 30, 2022 at 3:17 PM

I can only hope that higher salaries attract more qualified people instead of just people who are already rich and can afford to do politics. I feel like this same issue is in teaching, where salaries are so low that it pushes away talent to find higher paying jobs.

DMala t1_j29tkr8 wrote on December 30, 2022 at 6:08 PM

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to work. The real barrier for politics is the cost of the campaign you have to run to get in. Even prior to the raise, the salaries for most high level elected positions would be pretty livable for the average MA resident.

[deleted] t1_j2ajz6q wrote on December 30, 2022 at 8:58 PM

[deleted]

rpv123 t1_j2awkbl wrote on December 30, 2022 at 10:21 PM

Same. I was a former public school teacher, served on a city board, was working at a nonprofit doing great work locally in education, and was starting to build a resume looking towards an eventual run for school board and possibly, one day, city council. Then a relative joined their local school board in 2020 and I became friends with someone who served on our school board and I knixed the plan entirely. It’s not worth death threats to my family, even if I did feel like I would have been an asset.

Then, I switched nonprofits and my coworkers got death threats because, of course, no good deed goes unpunished in this political hellscape.

The_Big_Sad_69420 t1_j2aqkrs wrote on December 30, 2022 at 9:41 PM

that's horrifying. Especially when it's someone from the grassroots who's actually going into politics to make a change for themselves & people around them