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Everything Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does ends up being controversial.
The New York congresswoman's success with energising the left wing of the Democratic Party has earned her more than her fair share of enemies.
The latest reason for attacking her is an odd one.
She’s promised to pay her staff a “living wage”.
The proposal is in-line with her previous statements on the issue.
Ocasio-Cortez called for a living wage for Washington DC staff in December 2018 and pledged to pay interns for their work.
Living in Washington is notoriously expensive, with rents averaging around $2,139 per month (at the time of publication), and staffers often have to work two jobs to get by in the city.
In 2018, CNBC reported that a living wage in Washington would be $51,271, just below Ocasio-Cortez’s figure.
However, not everyone was happy with the congresswoman’s generosity.
The most common complaint was that she was wasting taxpayers' money.
There’s one problem with this argument – Ocasio-Cortez gets the same amount of money as all Congressional members.
She’s not wasting more money than any other member of Congress.
The way her office is paying for the pay rise is by capping salaries at the top of the team.
The top salaries in Ocasio-Cortez’s office will be $80,000, which is well below the average $155,000 pay for chiefs of staff in Washington, according to Corbin Trent, AOC’s communications director.
That redistribution of funds didn’t satisfy conservatives like Pete Hegseth, who claimed her decision was “socialism and communism on display”.
If “socialism and communism” was just about paying people enough to live comfortably, we don’t think many people would have a problem with it.
And it’s worth considering that congressional staff members are usually college educated, work long hours and literally help run the country.
If they can’t get a decent wage, who can?
HT: The Daily Dot
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