Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in Senators’ Offices, FY2001-FY2015
Released: 2016-11-09T00:00:00

Introduction

Levels of pay for congressional staff are a source of recurring questions among Members of Congress, congressional staff, and the public. Senators set the terms and conditions of employment for staff in their offices. This includes job titles and descriptions, rates of pay, subject to minimum and maximum levels, and resources available to them to carry out their official duties. There may be interest in congressional pay data from multiple perspectives, including assessment of the costs of congressional operations, guidance in setting pay levels for staff in Member offices, or comparison of congressional staff pay levels with those of other federal government pay systems.

Publicly available information sources do not provide aggregated congressional staff pay data in a readily retrievable form. The most recent publicly available Senate staff compensation report was issued in 2006, and relied on anonymous, self-reported survey data. Data in this report are based on official Senate reports, which afford the opportunity to use consistently collected data from a consistent source. Pay information in this report is based on the Senate's Report of the Secretary of the Senate , published semiannually, in periods from April 1 to September 30, and October 1 to March 31, as collated by LegiStorm, a private entity that provides some congressional data by subscription. Additionally, this report provides annual data, which allows for observations about the nature of Senators' personal staff compensation over time.

This report provides pay data for 16 staff position titles that are typically used in Senators' offices. The positions include the following:

Administrative Director Casework Supervisor Caseworker Chief of Staff Communications Director Counsel Executive Assistant Field Representative Legislative Assistant Legislative Correspondent Legislative Director Press Secretary Scheduler "Specials Director," a combined category that includes the job titles Director of Projects, Director of Special Projects, Director of Federal Projects, Director of Grants, Projects Director, or Grants Director Staff Assistant State Director

Senators' staff pay data for FY2001-FY2015 were derived from a random sampling of Senators' offices in which at least one staff member worked in a position in each year. For each fiscal year, FY2001-FY2015, a random sample of 25 Senators' offices was taken for each position. In order to be included, Senate staff had to hold a position with the same job title in the Senator's office for the entire fiscal year examined, and not receive pay from any other congressional employing authority. For some positions, it was not possible to identify 25 offices that employed staff for an entire year. In circumstances when data for 14 or fewer staff were identified for a position, this report provides no data. Every recorded payment ascribed in the LegiStorm data to those staff for the fiscal year is included. Data collected for this report may differ from an employee's stated annual salary due to the inclusion of overtime, bonuses, or other payments in addition to base salary paid in the course of a year. Generally, each position has no more than one observation per Senator's office each fiscal year.

Pay data for staff working in House Member offices are available in CRS Report R44323, Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in House Member Offices, 2001-2014 . Data describing the pay of congressional staff working in House and Senate committee offices are available in CRS Report R44322, Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in House Committees, 2001-2014 , and CRS Report R44325, Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in Senate Committees, FY2001-FY2014 , respectively.

Data Concerns

There may be some advantages to relying on official salary expenditure data instead of survey findings, but data presented here are subject to some challenges that could affect findings or their interpretation. Some of the concerns include the following:

Data are lacking for first-term Senators in the first session of a Congress. The periods of time covered by the Report of the Secretary of the Senate overlap the end of one Congress and convening of the next. This report provides no data for first-term Senators in the first nine months of their service. Pay data provide no insight into the education, work experience, position tenure, full- or part-time status of staff, or other potential explanations for levels of compensation. Staff could be based in Washington, DC, state offices, or both. Potential differences might exist in the job duties of positions with the same title. Aggregation of pay by job title rests on the assumption that staff with the same title carry out the same or similar tasks. Given the wide discretion congressional employing authorities have in setting the terms and conditions of employment, there may be differences in the duties of similarly titled staff that could have effects on their levels of pay. Acknowledging the imprecision inherent in congressional job titles, an older edition of the Senate Handbook states, "Throughout the Senate, individuals with the same job title perform vastly different duties."

Data Tables and Visualizations

Tables in this section provide background information on Senate pay practices, comparative data for each position, and detailed data and visualizations for each position. Table 1 provides the maximum payable rates for staff in Senators' offices since 2001 in both nominal (current) and constant 2016 dollars.

Constant dollar calculations throughout the report are based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for various years, expressed in constant, 2016 dollars.

Table 2 provides available cumulative percentage changes in pay in constant 2016 dollars for each of the 16 positions, Members of Congress, and salaries paid under the General Schedule in Washington, DC, and surrounding areas. Table 3 - Table 18 provide tabular pay data for Senators' staff positions. The numbers of staff whose data were counted are identified as observations in the data tables. Graphic displays are also included, providing representations of pay from three perspectives, including the following:

a line graph showing change in pay, depending on data availability, in nominal (current) and constant 2016 dollars; a comparison at 5-, 10-, and 15-year intervals from FY2015, depending on data availability, of the cumulative percentage change in pay of that position to changes in pay, in constant 2016 dollars, of Members of Congress and federal civilian workers paid under the General Schedule in Washington, DC, and surrounding areas; and distributions of FY2015 pay, in 2016 dollars, in $10,000 increments.

Between FY2011 and FY2015, the change in median pay, in constant 2016 dollars, ranged from a 9.86% increase for press secretaries to a -26.05% decrease for specials directors. Of the 16 positions, half saw pay increases, while the other half saw pay decreases during the five-year period. This may be compared to changes in the pay of Members of Congress, -5.1%, and General Schedule, DC, -3.19%, over approximately the same period (calendar years 2011-2015).

Between FY2006 and FY2015, the change in median pay, in constant 2016 dollars, ranged from a 15.69% increase for field representatives to a -18.96% decrease for executive assistants. Of the 16 staff positions, 4 saw pay increases while 12 saw declines. This may be compared to changes in the pay of Members of Congress, -10.41%, and General Schedule, DC, -0.13%, over approximately the same period (calendar years 2006-2015).

Between FY2001 and FY2015, the change in median pay, in constant 2016 dollars, ranged from a 27.09% increase for state directors to a -19.64% decrease for press secretaries. Of 15 staff positions for which data were available between FY2001 and FY2015, 7 positions saw pay increases while 8 saw declines. This may be compared to changes in the pay of Members of Congress, -10.4%, and General Schedule, DC, 7.36%, over approximately the same period (calendar years 2001-2015).