Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) is the lead signer of a letter from 110 representatives to the House Appropriations Committee requesting bigger budgets for their offices. The representatives are asking for more money so they can pay their staff fairer wages, allowing them to afford to live in the expensive Washington, D.C. area.
“For years, pay and benefits for the staff of Member offices, leadership offices, and committees have fallen farther and farther behind what is offered in the private sector,” the letter reads. “At the same time, the cost of living here in our nation’s capital has risen substantially, placing opportunities such as homeownership, rental housing, and childcare out of reach for many.”
The lawmakers are asking for a 21 percent increase to congressional office budgets after House staff salaries, they claim, were effectively cut by 20.7 percent in 2020 due to Congressional Budget Office projections.
Entry level staff especially are paid low wages, write the lawmakers, which places undue barriers on a person’s ability to work on Capitol Hill.
“The low salary available to entry-level staff continue[s] to raise barriers to entry and advantage those who are already wealthy and connected. These realities have hamstrung the House in our ability to recruit and retain the talented and diverse workforce we need to serve the diversity and needs of the American people in the best way possible,” the representatives write.
Ocasio-Cortez thanked her colleagues for joining her in the letter on Twitter and emphasized that the wage raises would be about giving everyone a fair chance at working for the government. “Generational wealth shouldn’t be a requirement to work in Washington,” she wrote.
In 2019, median pay for a staff assistant in the House offices was $39,130, according to the Congressional Research Service. For positions like legislative correspondent or field representative, median pay was between $45,000 and $50,000.
According to MIT’s living wage calculator, a living wage for an individual with no children in the D.C. area is about $41,500. If the person has one child, that figure bumps up to just over $81,000.
The fact that staff pay is often below a living wage on the Hill does, indeed, lead to the hiring of a less diverse staff. Low pay or no pay for workers in congressional offices can exclude people from middle- or lower-class backgrounds who don’t have the independent means to live in D.C., which leads to Washington staffers who are mostly white and from wealthy backgrounds who can have their lifestyles subsidized by other sources.
This is bad for staff retention, the letter writers say. Congressional staff often leave their jobs for the private sector, where they stand to make on average 26 percent more, according to 2019 research. “It is no wonder that the average staff member leaves Congressional employment after only three years,” they write. They also ask the Appropriations Committee to consider and account for the need to offer more competitive benefits to staffers.
Low salaries aren’t only bad for the staff — the barriers placed by low pay can also affect policy, Ocasio-Cortez argues.
“It is unjust for Congress to budget a living wage for ourselves, yet rely on unpaid interns and underpaid, overworked staff just because some conservatives want to make a statement about ‘fiscal responsibility,’” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “The lack of diversity on the Hill can be traced directly to our failure to pay staff a living wage. Low-pay also contributes to the undue influence of money in politics, with experienced Hill staffers frequently leaving to work for lobbyists and other special interests.”
Rep. Andy Levin (D-Michigan), one of the letter signers, also emphasized the importance of congressional staff diversity. “The American people benefit when staffers have valuable experience and come from diverse backgrounds. Funding for staff salaries will ensure the House workforce isn’t made up of the wealthy and well-connected, but of dedicated public servants who bring the knowledge and passion needed to best serve the working people of this country,” Levin said.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy