Lawmakers in Congress have a serious productivity problem.

To date, the new Congress (113th) has approved only 15 pieces of legislation—that’s a little more than two bills a month.

During the first six months of the previous Congress (112th), only 23 measures were adopted. Keep in mind that the 112th set the all-time record for congressional futility, approving only 220 laws in two years.

This means that the 113th is on pace to break the record and set the bar even lower when it comes to doing the people’s business.

Among their recent failures, lawmakers couldn’t agree on a farm bill or a measure to keep the interest rate on student loans from climbing to 6.8% (up from 3.4%).

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Unproductive Congress: How Stalemates Became the Norm in Washington DC (by Mark Murray, NBC News)

Do-Nothing Congress Somehow Manages to Do Even Less (by Dashiell Bennett, Atlantic Wire)

Current Congress Has Passed Fewer Bills than any Since at Least the 1940s (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)