Off-kilter With Rebecca Vallas

Last month, the newly launched Congressional Progressive Staff Association published a survey of more than five hundred Congressional staff. The results were damning. Half of Capitol Hill staffers who weren’t in management reported their pay was so low they were struggling to make ends meet. Roughly one in four of those who weren’t managers said they didn't have the equivalent of even one month's rent in the bank in the case of an emergency. And this despite routinely working twelve-hour days and weekends.  The survey’s troubling findings come as a viral Instagram account called “Dear White Staffers” has been drawing new levels of national attention to the low pay, poor working conditions, and toxic workplace environment that is often even more pervasive for staffers of color on the Hill. But a critical point that this growing national conversation demands is that the problem isn’t limited to Capitol Hill. Low starting salaries at many of the think tanks and policy organizations that shape public policy onl