More than 350 members of the House, Republicans and Democrats alike, claimed taxpayer reimbursements for lodging and meals at least once in 2025, a Boston Globe review of public expense records published Sept. 30 found.
Members claimed nearly $5.5 million for lodging and roughly $1.2 million for meals during the year, an average of more than $18,000 a lawmaker. Party leaders joined in, and five of the nine representatives in the all-Democratic Massachusetts delegation made regular use of the program.
The program dates to 2023, under a policy passed the year before that classified the time representatives spend in Washington as work-related travel. It pays government-set rates for lodging and meals on days the House is working, and it requires no receipts. The Globe verified that the Massachusetts claims stayed within the allowed limits, which differ for rental properties and homes the members own.
Representative Katherine Clark of Revere drew the most in the delegation, $19,578.81 for lodging and $3,422 for meals, though her housing claims ranked only 118th in the full House. Representative Jim McGovern of Worcester claimed $16,480 for lodging and $7,678 for meals. Representative Seth Moulton of Salem claimed $14,186 for lodging and $5,886.03 for meals; Representative Richard Neal of Springfield, $19,311.92 for lodging alone; and Representative Bill Keating of Bourne, $3,190.71, all of it for meals. The offices of Mr. McGovern and Mr. Neal gave the Globe documents verifying their monthly lodging payments; Ms. Clark’s office said a financial administrator checks her expenses, and Mr. Moulton’s said it keeps receipts. Meals follow a per diem rate.
In all, 312 House members expensed at least $5,000 for lodging in 2025 and four drew more than $30,000. The largest claimant was Representative Lance Gooden, a Texas Republican, who reimbursed himself more than $72,000, far above what the policy allows, although it was not clear whether all of the expenses fell under the program. The House Ethics Committee has said publicly that it is investigating Mr. Gooden without disclosing the accusations. His office declined to comment.
“It is a bandaid because they refuse to make the difficult decision” to raise their own pay, said Donald K. Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. “It is a deeply uncomfortable topic and politically toxic, but it is a necessary pill to swallow in order to get a more ethical and a more representative Congress.”
Tim Stretton, director of congressional oversight at the Project On Government Oversight, another watchdog, said the missing receipts and a reporting system that constituents find hard to locate were flaws. “Members of Congress here are in an unusual position, because they set the rules that govern their own compensation, and that’s what makes transparency very important around this,” he said.
In responses to the Globe, the Massachusetts members defended the arrangement. “The reimbursement program is designed to help make it possible for people of all financial backgrounds to be able to serve in Congress by partially defraying the cost of living in D.C. while Congress is in session,” said Joy Lee, a spokeswoman for Ms. Clark. A spokesman for Mr. Moulton, Aidan Curran, said, “If salaries do not keep pace with inflation, then being a Member of Congress will become out of reach for people who don’t have personal wealth.”
Most members of Congress have earned $174,000 a year since 2009 and have repeatedly voted, in annual spending bills, to block automatic raises that track inflation. In 2026 a congressional aide can earn up to $228,000, more than the members the aide serves. A group of lawmakers has sued over the frozen pay, arguing that blocking the increases each year violates the constitutional requirement that pay changes wait until after the next election. They won an initial ruling from a judge in May, though it remains unclear whether there will be back pay or any change to salaries.
The debate has run for years. A group of lawmakers studying how to modernize Congress recommended the expense change in 2022 after hearing members describe the difficulty of supporting families on stagnant pay; adjusted for inflation, salaries have shrunk steadily since 1993, when lawmakers earned the equivalent of more than $250,000 today. That same year Representative Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat elected at 25, posted on X that he had been denied an apartment because of debt from campaigning. “This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have money,” he wrote.
Others want the freeze to stay. “At a time when members already earn far more than the average American, and when the public has little faith in their elected officials, the last thing we need is a raise,” said Representative Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat who is not seeking re-election, back in 2024.
Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who also draws on the reimbursement program, raised the flat salary last year as a counterargument to a push to ban lawmakers from trading stocks, noting that adjusted for inflation members make 31 percent less than in 2009. “Over time, if you stay on this trajectory, you’re going to have less qualified people who are willing to make the extreme sacrifice to run for Congress,” he said.