Improve Congressional Capacity
Additionally, an R Street Institute report examined data from all 45 House and Senate committees to provide a comprehensive committee-by-committee look at the tenure, pay and gender balance of committee staffs. The report highlights vastly different experiences that men and women have on the Hill, even when performing the same job. When workers were sorted by job category—legislative assistant, communications, senior staff—men out-earned women in every category except administration. The smallest pay gap was at the senior staff level, where men earned $1,000 more per year, on average. The largest gap was in communications, where men out-earned women by roughly $15,000 per year.
The OTA was a bicameral, non-partisan service organization (similar to the Congressional Research Service or the Government Accountability Office ), with a narrow mandate to Congress with procurement, security, and technology advice for several decades.[163]
[163] Graves, Z. and Kosar, K. (2018, January). “Bring in the Nerds: Reviving the Office of Technology Assessment”, R Street Institute. https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Final-128.pdf.
Given the important role that committees play in the legislative process, the cumulative loss of committee staff is of particular concern.[252]
[252] See for detailed committee staffing trends: Who’s on the Hill: Staffing and Human Capital in Congress’ Legislative Committees, R Street Institute (Burgat, Casey and Dukeman, Ryan) (2018).
