Nearly 8 percent of Senate aides make less than a living wage, report finds - Roll Call

Working for Congress is a lot of things: exciting at times, boring during others; sometimes honorable, sometimes less so; equal parts an ego trip and ego check. But no one says it’s a particularly lucrative line of work. For decades, getting your start on the Hill also meant getting your start on some serious credit card debt. 

But a new report on congressional staff pay from Issue One suggests things have improved dramatically in recent years, finding that the percentage of aides working for less than a living wage has fallen since 2020. 

Congress boosted the Members’ Representational Allowance, or MRA, which includes staff payrolls, by 21 percent in fiscal 2022. And that same year, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi implemented a pay floor for House staff that set a $45,000 minimum salary.