Posted on 02/23/2019 1:22:28 PM PST by yesthatjallen
Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) announced this week that no one on her staff would make less than $52,000 a year, a move aimed at championing a “living wage.”
The progressive firebrand’s policy creates an unheard of salary for young House staffers in Washington, D.C., where the average rent is more than $2,000 a month, Roll Call reported Friday.
“It’s likely one of the highest entry-level salaries on the Hill,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “We pinch pennies elsewhere, but it’s worth every dime to pay a living wage.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director, Corbin Trent, told the outlet that salaries for the congresswoman’s office would top out at $80,000 — well below the $154,634 median wage, according to a Legistorm analysis of congressional chiefs of staffs.
Some Ocasio-Cortez staffers might be required to take pay cuts, Trent acknowledged. He is making $67,000 a year and has two children.
“Is it easy? No,” he said. “But part of walking the walk is understanding that everyone is going to have a little bit of a struggle. You divide it up. You work together.”
Ocasio-Cortez announced in December that she would also pay her interns at least $15 an hour.
The lawmaker wrote on Twitter that she was facing pushback from people who didn’t understand how congressional salaries work.
“Each member is given a set amount that they disburse. GOP has refused to increase budgets in years to give hard-working staff a raise, which means people helping to run the country are getting paid $30k/year,” she wrote.
The New Yorker said it was “pretty sad” who people thought the low salaries were a good thing.
“Low pay a big reason why money in politics is a problem - you can make a lot more money becoming a lobbyist & setting up a relationship w/ one, since the actual job doesn’t pay enough,” she wrote. “Domino effect.”
Her office has not yet finished hiring, but Trent told Roll Call that hiring will likely cap out at 18 staff members, the congressional limit.
Ocasio-Cortez has previously called for lawmakers in Congress to increase pay for members of their staff, stating that some don’t make a living wage.
In December, she wrote that she had met several bartenders, managers and servers in D.C. who also work in Senate or House offices.
"This is a disgrace. Congress of ALL places should raise [Members' Representational Allowances] so we can pay staff an actual DC living wage," Ocasio-Cortez, a rising star on the left, wrote in a tweet.
It’s easy to be generous with other people’s money
She is not paying them out of her salary.
25,000 New Yorkers would have made a “living wage”.
Always increasing salaries with taxpayer moneys. How about she pay with her own money. Back then people in politicis did not have salaries, they paid with their own money to finance their stay in congress
“It’s easy to be generous with other people’s money”
Exactly. I’m sure Stalin’s staff also lived well.
Fixed it...
>>>GOP has refused to increase budgets in years to give hard-working staff a raise, which means people helping to RUIN the country are getting paid $30k/year<<<
Again, SHE is the one who doesn’t understand how things work.
Blaming the Republicans: “in 2017, each Member’s MRA was equivalentto that “Member’s 2016 amount ... increase[d]...by approximately 3.9% of the average MRA. In June 2017, all MRAs were increased by $25,000 in response to heightened security concerns.”20MRAs ranged from $1,251,177 to $1,433,709, with an average of $1,315,523.”
Each Congressperson can have up to 18 full-time employees, unchanged since 1975. She can divide it up however she wishes. She could have fewer employees and pay them more. It’s not rocket surgery...
Oh, she can also have up to 4 part-time employees, like her boyfriend, for example.
All public information: https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/9c14ec69-c4e4-4bd8-8953-f73daa1640e4.pdf
25,000 versus what, ten People in her Office?
It had better be no more than ten. The (CURRENT) FLOTUS has less Staff Members.
But when Beria is your HR director you'd probably be happy to settle for a smaller apartment instead.
Not all jobs deserve equal payment.
Further who is she to demand that people WORK for their 52,000 a year?
And she pays this out of her salary right? I mean if they’re “her”staffers...... Think she’d sing a different tune IF she actually did have to take it out of her own account,
ROTFL. Barmaids on THE HILL.
Exactly. If she wants to be a true commie, she would mix her salary in with the office budget and divide it evenly.
I’ll be impressed when she announces that they’ll be allowed to keep all their “tips”. (Bribes).
WE should go back to paying them nothing and maybe they wouldn’t stay so damn long... a year or two and done would be fine with me.
Misleading headline. Then you read the story and find out that some people on her staff will have to take a pay cut.
A more accurate headline would read, “Ocasio-Cortez will cut pay for some on her staff to give raises to others.”
It’s not her money.
Will they all be living in her luxury condo building? If no, why not?
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