Federal jurors earn $50/day while losing $200+/day in wages

Federal court jurors are paid $50 per day of service, rising to $60/day only after 10 days of consecutive service. The median American worker earns roughly $250/day. For a three-week trial, a juror loses approximately $3,000-$4,200 in wages while receiving only $750-$900 in juror fees. This wage gap is not an inconvenience — it is a financial crisis for hourly workers, gig workers, and small business owners who have no paid leave. A single parent earning $18/hour who serves for 15 days loses $2,160 in wages and receives $770 in juror compensation, a net loss of $1,390 they cannot absorb. The reason this gap persists is that the federal juror fee of $50 was last meaningfully adjusted decades ago and Congress has no political incentive to raise it because jurors have no organized lobby, and the cost of raising fees across 94 federal districts would require appropriations nobody wants to fight for.