Both parties have substantially minimized pay gaps between female and male congressional staffers over the last decade. But it hasn't been enough to reverse a bigger trend: Women working for Congress still make less than men, according to a new LegiStorm analysis of congressional salaries.
The disparity is largest among House Republicans, who pay their female staffers an average of 94.1 percent of what men make. The Senate's Republican women fare only slightly better, bringing home salaries 95.6 percent of men's. Meanwhile, women working for House and Senate Democrats make 99.6 and 99.7 percent of their counterparts' salaries, respectively.
Those differences can really add up: In the House, Republican women made a median salary $3,150 less than their male counterparts last year. Republican women working for the Senate made $2,360 less.
Women across Congress are paid less for jobs with every function, with one exception. While women working policy-focused jobs make $2,650 and $3,321 less than their male counterparts in the House and Senate, respectively, women working in constituent-services roles actually outearn men by $1,198 in the House and are on par with men in the Senate.
While both parties have narrowed their pay gaps over the last decade, Republicans started with a much bigger gap and today are still farther from achieving pay-day parity. Ten years ago, Democratic women made $1,960 less than men in the House and $1,140 in the Senate, while Republican women brought home $5,120 and $5,540 less in the House and Senate, respectively.
