WASHINGTON — After two years of working in the same congressional office, David Tennent didn’t ask for a raise.

Hindsight may be 20/20, but knowing what he knows now, things could have turned out differently for him.

“I felt comfortable about what I was making, but then I started to look at all of this data, and I’m like, geez, I could have been making a lot more,” he said.

These days, pay questions take up a bit of Tennent’s time — he left his job in 2022 to start Capitol CNCT, a social and professional networking app for Hill staffers. Among its tools is one that shows users the average salary for their positions on the Hill, which they can break down further by party and chamber.

In some ways, things have gotten better lately for junior staff. While 13 percent of congressional aides made less than a living wage in 2020, that number shrank to 4.6% in 2023, according to a report from nonprofit government transparency group Issue One. It came after then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi established a House pay floor of $45,000.

But that’s a low bar to clear, and many worry that brain drain is leaving Congress hollowed out — and less able to assert the power of the legislative branch.

“Currently, there are huge financial incentives to leave Capitol Hill and go work for the private sector,” said Michael Beckel, who co-authored the report and serves as the money in politics reform director at Issue One. “Lobbyists can have more undue influence when you’ve got less institutional knowledge within a member’s office.”

Anne Meeker, managing director of POPVOX Foundation and a former congressional staffer, said the $45,000 pay floor is still a “tough sell” in an expensive city like D.C. and can squash careers in public service before they even begin.

“We’re hearing from offices that it is really tough for folks from ‘nontraditional’ Hill backgrounds to get their foot in the door with those low-entry level salaries,” Meeker said. “You may not have gone to an Ivy League university. Maybe you are supporting children. Maybe you are supporting parents or other family members.”

The status quo “emboldens and empowers” special interests, according to Beckel. Higher pay and more transparency wouldn’t solve all of Congress’ problems, he said, but it could go a long way toward attracting and retaining staff.

‘See the whole system’

The issue isn’t a lack of data — the public can see exactly how much every House staffer makes, thanks to statements of disbursement published each quarter.

But with thousands of staffers spread out over hundreds of lawmaker offices, each run as its own small fiefdom when it comes to expectations for employees, it can be hard for junior staffers to know how they stack up and to push for a raise.

“You shouldn’t have to work that hard to figure out what you should make,” said Tennent, whose own career included stints with former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and as digital director for Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa.

Omar Awan is another former staffer who believes pay knowledge is power. After more than two decades on the Hill, he left the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer last year to start a platform called HillClimbers.

“The staff data has been public for years, but it’s scattered and really, really hard to use,” he said. “What’s been missing is a way to see the whole system, and that’s had consequences.”

HillClimbers features salary compilations, a job board and what Awan calls the “career commute” tool, which allows users to map out typical promotion pathways from one role to another.

Awan is also working on what he calls the HillClimbers Index, which he said will launch late next month. By finding patterns in the public disbursements, he aims to rank the capacity, stability and structure of every congressional office.

In the public eye

Tools like that could help Hill bosses monitor how inviting they look to job seekers, while also giving staff a window into which offices have high turnover or other potential red flags.

More transparency is key, some argue, even if Hill staffers now have more protections than they once did. In 2018, lawmakers directed the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to publicly disclose the names of offices who pay settlements for discrimination complaints, and House rules now bar members from having sexual relationships with their staff or making “unwelcome sexual advances.”

But in practice, the House Ethics Committee rarely acts to rein in bad behavior, and staffers privately say power dynamics remain uneven, especially as young college graduates fill a host of lower-paying roles.

New calls for transparency emerged this week when the New York Post published text messages allegedly sent by Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, to a district staffer who later set herself on fire and died. Gonzales pushed back, telling reporters “what you have seen are not all the facts,” as several of his Republican colleagues urged him to resign.

That included Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who said the episode raises larger questions about how the House handles misconduct, introducing a resolution that, if adopted, would require the Ethics panel to release records of its sexual harassment investigations within 60 days.

Meanwhile, some Democratic staffers who had hoped to push for better pay and working conditions by unionizing have hit resistance since an initial burst in 2022, as Republican leaders moved to block their efforts after regaining control of the House.

Pay and workplace culture in Congress isn’t just a matter of individual livelihoods or happiness, Meeker said, but the health of the institution itself.

“The better experience people have serving in the institution, the more they will believe in it long term,” she said.

Both Tennent and Awan said their private-sector efforts to mine public data for insights are not a silver bullet but a start.

“Congress debates policy constantly, but we rarely examine the workforce that makes that policy possible,” Awan said.

“I don’t expect the data to change the House overnight. Institutions evolve slowly,” he added. “But I’m hoping we’ll start treating staff decisions as strategic choices rather than just budget line items.”

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