Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in Senate Committees, FY2001-FY2015
Released: 2016-11-09T00:00:00

Introduction

The level of pay for congressional staff is a source of recurring questions among Members of Congress, congressional staff, and the public. In Senate committees, the chair and ranking Member set the terms and conditions of employment for majority and minority staff, respectively. This includes job titles and descriptions; rates of pay, subject to minimum and maximum levels; and resources available to staff 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 committee 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. Data in this report are based on official Senate reports, which afford the opportunity to use consistently collected data. 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 collected and organized by LegiStorm, a private entity that provides some congressional data by subscription. Additionally, this report provides annual data by fiscal year, which allows for observations about the nature of Senate committee staff compensation over time.

This report provides pay data for 13 staff position titles that are used in Senate committees, and for which sufficient data could be identified. Position titles and the years for which data are available since FY2001 are provided in Table 1 . Titles were identified through a two-step process. The first step identified 302 job titles used in Senate committees in FY2014. Of those titles, 277, or 91.7%, were filled by only one staff member and excluded. In the second step, the remaining 25 titles were assessed to determine how many of the 20 Senate committees for which data were available employed staff with each title. Twelve position titles that were used by six or fewer panels (five for minority positions) were excluded.

Pay data were then collected for the remaining 13 positions. In order to be included, annual pay data for each position needed to be available from at least five committees (four for minority positions). When committees had more than one staff member with the same job title, data for no more than two staff per committee were collected. Senate committee staff had to hold a position with the same job title in the same committee for the entire fiscal year examined, and not receive pay from any other congressional employing authority for their data to be included. Every recorded payment ascribed in the LegiStorm data to those staff for the fiscal year is tabulated. 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.

Pay data for staff working in House committee offices are available in CRS Report R44322, Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in House Committees, 2001-2014 . Data describing the pay of congressional staff working in the personal offices of Senators and Members of the House are available in CRS Report R44324, Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in Senators' Offices, FY2001-FY2014 , and CRS Report R44323, Staff Pay Levels for Selected Positions in House Member Offices, 2001-2014 , respectively.

Data Concerns

Data presented here are subject to some challenges that could affect findings presented or their interpretation. Some of the concerns include the following:

Given the large number of positions with titles held by one Senate employee, data provided here almost certainly do not represent all of the jobs carried out by Senate committee staff. The manner in which staff titles are assigned might have implications about the representativeness of the data provided. Of positions for which data were collected, two broad categories emerge. The first category identifies position titles that usually apply to one staff member per committee. Since almost all available data were collected for those positions, pay information provided is likely to be highly representative of what Senate committees pay staff in those positions. The second category includes positions for which committees might hire two or more staff members, Since pay data were collected for no more than two staff per committee for each position, it is more likely that data for those positions is a sample of staff in those positions rather than nearly complete data, which may be less closely representative of what all staff in those positions are paid. 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. 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 2 provides the maximum payable rates for Senate committee staff 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 3 provides the available cumulative percentage changes in median pay for each of the 13 positions, Members of Congress, and salaries paid under the General Schedule in Washington, DC, and surrounding areas. Table 4 - Table 16 provide tabular pay data for each Senate committee staff position. 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 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, when available, in 2016 dollars, in $10,000 increments.

Between FY2011 and FY2015, the change in median pay, in constant 2016 dollars, ranged from a 16.93% increase for professional staff members to a -16.48% decrease for staff assistants. Of the seven staff positions for which data were available in FY2011 and FY2015, two positions saw pay increases while seven saw declines. This may be compared to changes to the pay of Members of Congress, -5.10%, 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 22.01% increase for senior counsels to a -26.72% decrease for staff assistants. Of the eight staff positions for which data were available in FY2006 and FY2015, four positions saw pay increases and four saw declines. This may be compared to changes to 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 30.88% increase for systems administrators to a -26.67% decrease for staff assistants. Of seven staff positions for which data were available in FY2001 and FY2015, five positions saw pay increases while two saw declines. This may be compared to changes to the pay of Members of Congress, -10.40%, and General Schedule, DC, 7.36%, over approximately the same period (calendar years 2001-2015).