{"id":178140,"date":"2019-02-24T19:14:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T00:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/02\/24\/walking-the-walk-2\/"},"modified":"2019-02-24T19:14:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T00:14:00","slug":"walking-the-walk-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/02\/24\/walking-the-walk-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking the Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"
Not only does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocate for a living wage, she pays her staff a living wage<\/a>:<\/div>\n

Claudia Pagon Marchena, like so many Hill staffers, moonlighted at a Washington, D.C., eatery to pay her rent until she took a job with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>. She celebrated her last day at her coffee shop job that same week.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Ocasio-Cortez, who has called on fellow lawmakers to pay their staffs a \u201cliving wage,\u201d is making an example out of her own office. The New York Democrat has introduced an unusual policy that no one on her staff will make less than $52,000 a year \u2014 an almost unheard of amount for many of the 20-somethings whose long hours make House and Senate offices run.<\/p>\n

For Pagon Marchena, 22, the pay bump meant an end to a grueling, seven-day-a-week work schedule that was wearing down her resolve to stay in Washington, where rents average more than $2,000 a month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unsustainable,\u201d she said. \u201cI needed an office that was going to pay me a fair wage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policy, which has not been previously reported, is the latest sign that Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats intend to buck a long-established trend of ostentatious austerity in congressional offices. Government watchdog groups say deep cuts to office and committee budgets have contributed to a lack of diversity in Hill offices, high turnover and congressional brain drain.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Ocasio-Cortez is trying to force the conversation. She made national headlines in December by announcing that all interns in her office would make $15 an hour plus benefits<\/a> \u2014 a rarity for Capitol Hill offices in which interns are often unpaid. She has also highlighted the high number of Hill staff members who work side jobs<\/a> to make up for median salaries as low as $35,000 for staff assistants, the lowest paid positions in congressional offices<\/a>, according to a Legistorm analysis last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that if a person is working, they should make enough to live,\u201d said Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s communications director.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am counting down the days until she can run for President.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not only does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocate for a living wage, she pays her staff a living wage: Claudia Pagon Marchena, like so many Hill staffers, moonlighted at a Washington, D.C., eatery to pay her rent until she took a job with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She celebrated her last day at her coffee shop job that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[447,450,522,537,584],"class_list":["post-178140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-congress","tag-employment","tag-heroism","tag-integrity","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}