Federal Jurors Get a Raise After Nearly 30 Years — But It Doesn't Top Minimum Wage

You thought you had it bad? Try 28 years without a pay raise. Federal jurors who sit through hours, days and even weeks or months of testimony, government exhibits and lawyer soliloquies are getting a raise in the new spending bill Congress just passed.Starting pay jumps from $40 per day to $50. The daily rate goes up to $60 after 45 days of service - up $10 from the current schedule. Although many trials last up to a week, some complex white-collar trials can continue for months.That's not going to make anyone rich. The federal minimum wage is $58 a day.In Dallas County state courts, jurors earn $6 for the first day of service and $40 after that. The rate is set by the Legislature. County jurors' last raise was in 2013 when lawmakers increased the daily rate from $30 per day. But that was after they slashed it in 2011 during a budget crisis - from $40 to $28 and then up to $30.It wasn't Congress' idea to pay federal jurors more.A group of Washington, D.C.-based federal grand jurors, who sit for longer periods and decide whether to charge people in indictments, petitioned them for the increase, which was tucked into the $1.3 trillion Congressional spending bill that President Donald Trump signed last Friday to avoid a government shutdown.The jurors had called their compensation "abysmal."  Continue reading...