--- title: Ocasio-Cortez Calls on D.C. to Pay Higher Wages for Staffers description: She says it's unfair to "rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff" canonical: https://time.com/5470901/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-minimum-wage-washington/ author: Suyin Haynes article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-05T07:01:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:03.187Z article:section: Politics og:title: Ocasio-Cortez Calls on D.C. to Pay Higher Wages for Staffers og:description: She says it's unfair to "rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff" og:url: https://time.com/5470901/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-minimum-wage-washington/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d2992ae90fe3d1/69894091929fad6cb5bf23a0/gettyimages-1075023604.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4852 og:image:height: 2729 og:image:alt: House Administration Committee Holds New Member Orientation And Room Lottery Draw og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ocasio-Cortez Calls on D.C. to Pay Higher Wages for Staffers twitter:description: She says it's unfair to "rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d2992ae90fe3d1/69894091929fad6cb5bf23a0/gettyimages-1075023604.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls on Washington to Pay Congressional Staff Higher Salaries > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Joins Climate Change Activists in Protest Outside Nancy Pelosi's Office [Watch (HLS stream): Incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Joins Climate Change Activists in Protest Outside Nancy Pelosi's Office](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zpRbus3Z.m3u8) (1:02)  _Published 2018-11-13. Democratic Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has joined about 200 climate-change activists as they stage a protest at the office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi._ by [Suyin Haynes](https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/) ## Suyin Haynes Dec 5, 2018 7:01 AM UTC  Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks with a colleague at the lottery draw for congressional offices Nov. 30, 2018 in Washington, DC. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks with a colleague at the lottery draw for congressional offices Nov. 30, 2018 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee—Getty Images by [Suyin Haynes](https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/) ## Suyin Haynes Dec 5, 2018 7:01 AM UTC Congressional representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called on her fellow lawmakers to follow her lead and increase the wages of their staff in Washington, D.C. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez, who became [the youngest woman](http://time.com/5323592/2018-elections-women-history-records/) elected to Congress in last month’s midterms, tweeted about her experience of meeting service staff in a D.C. restaurant who were simultaneously working in government. Ocasio-Cortez ran on a platform advocating for a [$15 baseline minimum wage](https://ocasio2018.com/issues), and called the current situation a “disgrace.” > [](https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1069652489383960577) In a follow-up tweet, the newly-elected Democratic Socialist from New York argued that it was unfair for Congress to “rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff.” She [later responded](https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1070018105231978496) to critics arguing that when businesses do not pay the minimum wage, they “wish that they can pay human labor less than they require to live.” > [](https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1069655034093297665) Late on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez pledged on Twitter that she would be paying her own interns. [A 2017 study](http://payourinterns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Payourinternsreport.pdf) by Washington based advocacy group Pay Our Interns reported that 8% of Republican House representatives pay their interns compared with 3.6% of Democratic representatives. It is not the first time that Ocasio-Cortez has drawn attention to the high cost of living and inequality in the U.S. capital. After her election win in November, she disclosed to the [_New York Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/nyregion/ocasio-cortez-congress-washington.html) that she was unable to afford an apartment in Washington until she started receiving her own congressional salary, [calling the situation](https://twitter.com/Ocasio2018/status/1060588813582585858) one of the “many little ways in which our electoral system isn’t even designed (nor prepared) for working-class people to lead.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5470901/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-minimum-wage-washington/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5470901/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-minimum-wage-washington/"},"headline":"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls on Washington to Pay Congressional Staff Higher Salaries","datePublished":"2018-12-05T07:01:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:03.187Z","description":"She says it's unfair to \"rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff\"","url":"https://time.com/5470901/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-minimum-wage-washington/","keywords":["Congress","onetime","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d2992ae90fe3d1/69894091929fad6cb5bf23a0/gettyimages-1075023604.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Suyin Haynes","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19d2992ae90fe3d1/69894091929fad6cb5bf23a0/gettyimages-1075023604.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"House Administration Committee Holds New Member Orientation And Room Lottery Draw","caption":"House Administration Committee Holds New Member Orientation And Room Lottery Draw","creditText":"Win McNamee—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5470901/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-minimum-wage-washington/","name":"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls on Washington to Pay Congressional Staff Higher Salaries"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Incoming Rep. 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