MK Uri Ariel (National Union) has an idea: “Reduce Knesset Members’ salaries by 5%.”
Ariel, in his fourth term as Member of Knesset, has asked Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin to act towards cutting the salaries of the 120 parliamentarians. Last week, the Cabinet resolved to cut ministers’ salaries by 5%.
Ariel wrote to Rivlin that cutting their salaries “would save the national treasury the equivalent of 4.5 Knesset Members. It would also express the concern and participation of the MKs in the plight of all the rest of Israel’s citizens, many of whom have been laid off and have no work.”
“MKs are often viewed as being above the public, sitting in an ivory tower without sensing changes in the weather and not party to the public’s suffering and experiences,” MK Ariel said. “The time has come to change this. Our willingness to cut our own salaries will reflect the true partnership and pain that most of us feel for and with the public.”
Knesset Members earn some 33,000 shekels per month, a sum whose normal annual increase was frozen this year by Knesset decision. It is roughly 4-5 times the average salary in Israel.
In the last Knesset term, the 120 MKs spent an average of nearly 12 days each year per MK abroad. Knesset recesses last a total of about four months each year.
The MKs also enjoy various fiscal benefits, including phone lines, newspapers, very generous pension benefits, and a one-time “acclimatization grant” of 130,000 shekels if they leave the Knesset after at least one full term of four years.