Legistorm: Transparency's Sidekick

Roll Call has clearly been spending some time on our site. The paper used LegiStorm's data for two stories on congressional employees this week.

In today's story Paul Singer looks at shared employees; staffers who provide IT or bookkeeping services to more than one office:

"According to payroll data compiled by LegiStorm, the salaries of many of these shared employees have skyrocketed over the past few years. For example, Susan Anfinson, a financial aide, earned just over $40,000 in 2003 from eight Congressional offices. In 2007, according to payroll records complied by LegiStorm, she earned over $141,000 in paychecks from 13 different offices.

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The newspaper Politico used our site to publish a story today about how Hill staffers often have to scrape by on their wages. Politico points out that for entry-level staffers, "living on the cheap is not a measure of frugality but a means of survival."

While some staffers, especially committee aides, command more than $150,000 a year, the competition for the entry-level jobs is such that it is a buyer's market.

But Politico may have understated the case. They said that after taxes, some staffers make only $25,000. Actually, our salary figures are gross figures before the removal of taxes and other deductions. And our data shows quite a few congressional aides make $25,000 or less before taxes. As Politico says, in an expensive town like Washington, $25,000 does not go nearly so far as in most of the rest of the country.