"Incoming Speaker Boehner recently vowed to tighten the House of Representative’s collective belt through a 5 percent budget reduction. Congressional staff are the most likely target. An in-depth look at Congressional staff employment trends raises questions about whether Congress has the support necessary to do its job. After reviewing a quarter century of staff salary and retention data, we found:
A pay gap between Washington-based House personal office staff earnings and people doing equivalent work in the DC metropolitan area.
A decrease in the total number of hill staff over the last two decades.
Fewer staff engaged in policy-making roles.
Average salaries for most Washington-based House personal staff have not increased in two decades, and may have decreased for many.
Who is picking up the slack? One clue could lie in the nearly 12,500 federally registered lobbyists, and countless others, who provide information and exert influence in the halls of Congress; by contrast there’s around 7-8,000 House personal office, leadership, and committee staff. Put a different way, $2.6 billion was spent on lobbying in Washington in 2010, versus $1.37 billion for the House of Representatives in FY 2010. Have we privatized Congress?"
Keeping Congress Competent: Staff Pay, Turnover, And What It Means for Democracy
Sunlight Foundation:
