Fox News has once again turned attention to its favorite new scapegoat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who made waves last week when she announced that no one on her staff, including entry-level 20-somethings, would make less than $52,000 per year. To accomplish this, the freshman lawmaker will have to distribute her yearly budget allotted for staff salaries and other expenses more evenly, meaning that higher-level employees such as her chief of staff will receive lower salaries — but everyone across the board will earn a living wage.
Ocasio-Cortez made the decision as she saw many young staffers on Capitol Hill working grueling hours at near-pittance salaries (with the average rent cost $2,000 per month in Washington D.C.), which often required them to work side jobs on nights and weekends in the service industry. The result was high staff turnover as younger employees simply burned out from exhaustion.
Leadership starts with our choices.
That’s why I decided that no one on my staff will make less than $52k/year.
It’s likely one of the highest entry-level salaries on the Hill. We pinch pennies elsewhere, but it’s worth every dime to pay a living wage.https://t.co/IxfNH4632h
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2019
One might see this as a positive, but of course Fox News found a way to put a negative spin on, you know, AOC paying her staff enough to afford to eat and keep a roof over their heads.
“Get a load of this, right, a tweet went out yesterday, she said ‘leadership begins at home’ or whatever, however she put it,” said Fox and Friends host Griff Jenkins on Sunday morning. “She basically announced that she is going to redistribute the money appropriated to her congressional office to make sure that entry-level staffers get a fair share of money.”
The horror!
After co-host Pete Hegseth pointed out that higher up staffers who would normally make upwards of $150,000 will be capped at $80,000, he remarked: “It’s actually socialism and communism on display.”
On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez clapped back at Fox News in a lengthy Instagram post, laughing off the label of “communism” simply because she thinks people should earn a high enough salary to just get by on, adding that she wished congressional budgets allowed for them to make it even higher.
She went on to spell out her line of reasoning, ostensibly for those in the back of the room:
Low pay is also a big reason for lack of socioeconomic diversity in DC, aka why many spaces in government can feel like a silver spoon club: only people who work 80+hr weeks w/ multiple jobs without an outside life, or whose parents can supplement their pay can have the opportunity to work in the nation’s capital. That has real consequences for government being out of touch w/ the people we serve on all levels. There’s a TON of work that needs to be done when it comes to the workplace (parental leave, hiring practices, living wage, healthcare as a right and not a perk, etc), but it starts with paying people enough to live as a minimum requirement, and not a luxury (and I guess that gets you called a communist these days ?).
Not to mention, it’s not a bad thing to encourage young people to actually want to engage and work for our government to help shape the future of the nation. But the Fox News subset would likely find obvious flaws in that logic, as well.
(Via GQ)