Are salaries for Congressional staffers insufficient for living in the Washington, DC, area?
Depends entirely on the stafferu2019s position within their office and their willingness to be frugal.Disclaimer: This answer only looks at salaries in the House of Representatives. Itu2019s not that the data doesnu2019t exist to do the same for the Senate[1] , but their semi-annual salary reports arenu2019t in searchable format, and, I donu2019t have the time to manually enter tens of thousands of lines of code. Moreover, I donu2019t have the financial position to get a paid account with Legistorm[2] , whou2019ve otherwise done the work for me. In my experience[3] , Senate salaries are just enough above House salaries to be appreciably higher, but still close enough for government work.But seriously, if anybody in the Office of the Secretary of the Senate reads this: Itu2019s the 21st Century, yu2019all u2024 thereu2019s no reason why public accounting information shouldnu2019t be searchable.Iu2019m largely going to skip over how Congressional offices organize themselves, although Iu2019d strongly recommend you read up on it for awarenessu2024 sake[4] [5] . In broad strokes, House and Senate offices are provided with a bulk amount of money to hire staff, and how they choose to compensate employees thereafter is entirely at the discretion of the Representative or Senator.Noting my disclaimer, I pulled down the last four House of Representativesu2024 quarterly u201cStatement of Disbursementsu201d reports[6] (in the very helpful CSV format, Senate!), and then did some cleaning up to focus on those employees whoWere named in all reports, and,Were employed in the same office in each report.This left me with 7,833 unique employees of the House of Representatives, to include 5,625 employees in Representativesu2024 offices and 931 employees in committee offices.So, a pretty good sample. Next step was to compare their annual(ized) salaries to the income distribution for the Washington, DC, metro area (and I further defined the u201cCoreu201d metro area as DC and the immediately neighboring counties in Virginia and Maryland):Right. So, obviously, a few things stand out.More than half (51.5%) of the Houseu2019s employees are in the $35-75,000 range, compared to 22-23% of DC area households, depending on how you look at the area. Additionally, the (near) absence of House employees earning $200,000 or more reflects the fact that no employee of the House is permitted to make more than the Speaker of the House (and, by convention, not more than a Representative - but I found a few folksu2026).But if youu2019re familiar with Congressional offices (because you did the reading), youu2019d recognize that theyu2019re not all equal. Representative/Senator offices tend to have more junior staffers than committee offices, moreover, the sample includes field representatives and caseworkers whou2019re not based in the DC area, and so may not require similar compensation. So, getting more granular, hereu2019s the House salary distribution by office type or function:Pretty stark difference between Representativesu2024 offices and committee offices. Once again, more than half (57%) of Representativesu2024 DC staff are drawing annual salaries between $35-75,000, whereas fully two-thirds of committee staff are compensated at $75,000 per year or more. In leadership offices (eg, Office of the Speaker, Minority Leader, etc.), more than half of employees (56%) are compensated at $100,000 or more per year.The Houseu2019s apolitical (or at least non-partisan) supporting offices also prbetter compensation than Representativesu2024 personal offices (which, given the crap they have to put up with from Representatives and their aides: fair enough).Here are the differences in table form:So, again, thereu2019s a very clear difference in levels of compensation in Representativesu2024 personal offices than elsewhere in the House.But letu2019s pull this discussion back to how these salaries compare to those in the Washington, DC, area, specifically, letu2019s draw comparison to nonfamily households in order to try and make a better comparison of individualsu2024 salary distribution in the Washington, DC, area (and saving us from having to guess which Hill staffers are more comfortable at home by being married/de facto and which arenu2019t):Again, you can see committee staffersu2024 incomes taking off relative to the general (nonfamily) population, while personal staffersu2024 are disproportionate in the $35-75,000 range.But now weu2019re really at the thrust of the question: Sure, Representativesu2024 personal staff arenu2019t making as much as committee staffers and nonfamily households in the region, generally, but does that mean they canu2019t afford to live in the DC area?Iu2019m going to focus on the below-median income earners, since itu2019s less likely that the above-median earners are doing well enough in the area (unless, of course, we find reason to believe otherwise):So letu2019s consider some basic expenses.First, obviously, we need to get our arms around what the staffersu2024 after-tax salaries are and thatu2024 Sucks. We can make a reasonable guess as to what their Federal tax liability is u2024 we know what the Federal income tax brackets are[7] , plus rates of Social Security and Medicare withholding[8] . Obviously, any staffersu2024 actual liability will depend entirely on their individual circumstances, however, as a ballpark, we can go with the basic rates (and, again, assuming staffers are filing individually because theyu2019re workaholics who donu2019t date).Enjoy this table:Immediate takeaway is that staffers on the bottom of the payscale should choose to live in Maryland (and, as a born and bred Northern Virginian, it pained me to say that, however, numbers are numbers).Now that weu2019ve taken away basically half the staffersu2024 pay, we need to figure out where theyu2019ll live.According to the American Community Survey run by the Census Bureau, the median gross rent (which includes basic utilities[9] ) in the DC area is about $1,600 per month, with a range of $1,385-$1,895 in the core area. For single bedroom apartments, the range is more like $1,100-$1750, however, as others have mentioned, itu2019s popular for staffers to shack-up in multiple bedroom homes and apartments to drop their rental cost. So here, again, is a table that shows the areau2019s rental prices per occupant, assuming all bedrooms are filled:If staffers donu2019t mind giving up a little privacy and exclusivity (and spaciousness), then itu2019s not infeasible to keep rental costs to somewhere between $5-8,000 per year, but with $6-8,000 more likely.For the purposes of filling out our table, though, letu2019s start with the average of the annual, minimum rents for fully occupied three and four bedroom apartments/homes ($6,235). Those minimums were out in Manassas, Virginia, so letu2019s begin calculating expenses from there.If the staffers are dumb enough to try to drive into DC from Manassas on a weekday, they deserve every bit of the Hell that will be their variable 1.5-2.5 hour one-way commute:That map is also being very generous in assuming the staffers at the bottom end of the payscale will have a parking space on the Hill. They wonu2019t. Thatu2019s laughably nau00efve u2024 and any staffer who was too lazy to look at the parking situation near Capitol Hill before driving all the way in will fast find themselves paying $24 per day at Union Station if they want to be in any kind of reasonable walking distance to work and subsequently being laughed at by everyone else on the Hill.So donu2019t do that.The other downside to commuting into the city from Virginia is that, if you want to avoid the rage-inducing traffic jams, then youu2019ll also incur approximately $20 in tolls per day on I-66 ($5,200 per year). I-395 will be no better after the extension project is finished (and no, contrary to Google Mapsu2024 depiction, u201ctaking the long wayu201d around I-66 to I-395 on a weekday morning to avoid tolls is not a viable option unless youu2019re a masochist).Staffers might be tempted to take the Metro, but parking is $4.95 per day in Virginia and then the rail itself costs $12 per day (so $4,400 per year).Also, didnu2019t we decide based on taxes to not live in Virginia? Yeah, F-this.Moving out to Prince Georgeu2019s County, Maryland, increases the rent a little bit ($6,560), but weu2019re easily saving around $2,000 in taxes, so thatu2019s not such a bad trade-off. Parking at Metro stations is a little higher on the Maryland side ($5.20/day), but the rail fares are less ($8/day u2024 Orange and Blue Lines), so that comes out to $3,400 per year u2024 $1,000 less than Virginia.u2026You just donu2019t know how hard it is for me to be making the case to live in Marylandu2026And, of course, living in D.C. would mean almost no commute time or expense, but taxes, so please donu2019t.Now to food.Getting good information on average food expenses is actually frigginu2024 difficult. Youu2019d think datau2019d be more readily accessible, but it was a struggle. The closest I got was the Consumer Expenditure Survey, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the results for the cost of food prepared at home varied pretty significantly by metric. When looked at by income levels, for households with incomes between $30-$70,000 per year before taxes, annual food costs ranged from $3,780-$4,160. However, for all single, sole-income earners, the average cost was $2,316.Interestingly, sole-earners spent an annual average of $487 on alcohol, above the $305-$480 for the income brackets.No judgment.Anyway, those are national averages, and most available indices peg the DC areau2019s food and groceries somewhere around 25% more expensive than nationally. Again, assuming our staffers are pinching pennies, a base annual food spend of $2,895 (25% above the BLSu2024 data for single, sole income earners) doesnu2019t seem unreasonable (if very optimistic and not much beyond the basics).So having sorted taxes, rent, food and transport, hereu2019s what weu2019re looking at for a frugal, low-paid Hill staffer living in Maryland:That, of course, doesnu2019t include things like health insurance (a quick scan of the DC market reveals costs around $5,000 per year for low-coverage plans), car insurance and maintenance, utilities, clothing, any existing debts, student loansu2024 You know, life.And itu2019s incredibly optimistic in the basest sense that a staffer would be able to find an apartment at the low end of the scale with a constant number of roommates to keep rent down. A staffer who decides to share space with a bunch of roommates in DC only to have them all move out one month and then struggle to fill the rooms (as happened to me u2024 good times), they could find themselves living paycheck to paycheck very fast (ibid.).But having said all that, for most Hill staffers, it isnu2019t impossible to live in the DC area on their salary. They just have to be smart - which is good advice for everyone. Entry-level Staff Assistants and newly minted Legislative Correspondents, however, probably ought to think hard about splurging on the weekends.And can somebody please, please tell the Senate to start putting out salary data in searchable format?Footnotes[1] Report of the Secretary of the Senate[2] Congress Revealed[3] Carter Moore's answer to What is daily life like for a congressman or a congressional staffer?[4] https://www.everycrsreport.com/f...[5] Carter Moore's answer to Who and how many people are on the staff of a United States congressman?[6] Statement of Disbursements[7] Federal Income Tax Brackets 2018[8] Social Security and Medicare Contributions[9] https://www2.census.gov/programs...
