Crying poor mouth while you make $174K a year plus insane benefits, not exactly the best optics.

Update to this story.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday become the highest-ranking lawmaker to say that members of Congress should get a salary increase.

The House will vote later Tuesday on a bill funding operations for the legislative branch that maintains the freeze on lawmaker pay that’s been in place since 2010. Hoyer said that enough time has passed for members of Congress to be eligible for a cost of living adjustment (COLA).

The second-ranking House Democrat warned that preventing a lawmaker salary increase for too long will limit the kinds of people who can serve in Congress. […]

Hoyer’s comments came after Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) said members of Congress are overdue for a salary increase.

Rank-and-file lawmakers in the House and Senate are paid $174,000 annually, while members of leadership make more money. The Speaker receives the highest salary, at $223,500 per year.

“Members don’t like to talk about it. But it’s kind of a sad state of affairs that we are entering the seventh year of Congress not receiving a raise,” Hastings said Monday at a House Rules Committee hearing on the legislative branch operations funding bill that continues the pay freeze.

Hastings said he was forced out of a luxury apartment complex near Union Station called Senate Square, where he originally paid rent at $2,100 per month. But he moved out to a new building recently after Senate Square’s rent had reached $3,100.