Congress hired more paid interns in 2018 than in any year since 2011 — but still far fewer than every year in the preceding decade.
Overall, congressional offices are allocating more total money toward paying their interns but the pay per intern has been stagnant for a decade. And they are the lucky ones to be paid at all.
These trends are occurring as congressional intern and staff pay has become a national issue, with incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) making headlines last week after calling for members of Congress to pay all staffers and interns a living wage and promising to pay her own interns "at least" $15 per hour.
Those interns who did get paid received an average stipend of $2,400 in the Senate and $1,400 in the House so far this year. But most interns on the Hill actually receive no pay at all. Internship programs are often the first step in congressional hiring programs, and it can be difficult to get a permanent Hill job without having first completed a congressional internship.
From January to September of this year, Senate offices hired 1,329 paid interns, while the House hired 889, for a total of 2,218. Those numbers have risen steadily in recent years, from a low of 1,593 in 2013.
Despite the increase, it's still a departure from the 2000s, when Congress paid hundreds more interns per year. The number of paid interns peaked in 2004, with 2,809 receiving stipends in the year's first three quarters.
These numbers may include multiple paid Hill internships per person and do not include any outside funding.
