Overview
For more than 20 years, one of the key services CMF provided to Senate and House offices were compensation, hiring and benefit studies. These reports collected data about House and Senate personal office staff, including a range of compensation data, a demographic breakout for all positions common to personal offices, office benefits and personnel practices.
These reports were used extensively by Chiefs of Staff and Members to assist them in hiring staff, determining compensation levels for their staff, and deciding office benefits and personnel practices. The reports were also used extensively by a large number of House and Senate staff to assist them in negotiating salaries.
History
In response to repeated requests from Senate and House Chiefs of Staff, CMF began conducting employment studies in the mid-1980s, publishing the results in our management guidebook Setting Course. In 1990, CMF significantly expanded the scope of this research and, for the next decade, adopted a regular production schedule for the studies.
CMF published a House report every even year from 1990 – 2004 (the 2002 and 2004 editions were produced under contract with the Chief Administrative Officer of the House) and published a Senate report in every odd year from 1991 – 2001. These reports are posted in PDF below.
Since CMF last produced these employment studies, the House and Senate have commissioned additional employment studies that CMF did not conduct, so the respective House and Senate institutional offices must be contacted for this information. CMF does not provide nor sell these publications.
- For the Senate, the last (and only additional) comprehensive Senate employment study (including both compensation and benefits) was conducted by the Secretary of the Senate in 2006 and is available from the Senate Library.
- For the House, the CAO conducted studies in 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2019. In 2021, the House Office of Diversity & Inclusion conducted a study of staff compensation, benefits, and demographics. The 2021 House Compensation and Diversity Study is available for download from their website at: https://diversity.house.gov/compensation-benefits. Also available are interactive dashboards.
Additionally, in recent years the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has analyzed publicly disclosed congressional employee data and produced reports on the compensation and tenure of the most common staff positions in House and Senate offices. These reports can be found at: https://crsreports.congress.gov/
CMF Employment Studies and Related Research
House
2004 House Staff Employment Study (1.73 MB)
2002 House Staff Employment Study (920 KB)
2000 House Staff Employment Study (4.18 MB)
1998 House Staff Employment Study (2.9 MB)
1996 House Staff Employment Study (2.7 MB)
1994 House Staff Employment Study (3.26 MB)
1992 House Staff Employment Study (3.27 MB)
1990 House Staff Employment Study (2.27 MB)
1987 House Staff Employment Study (1.39 MB)
Senate
Senate Salary, Tenure, and Demographic Data: 1991-2001
This report is a compilation of six Senate Staff Employment Studies from 1991-2001. It includes aggregate data on the salary, age, education, work experience, race, and gender of staff.
2001 Senate Staff Employment Study (601 KB)
1999 Senate Staff Employment Study (3.35 MB)
1997 Senate Staff Employment Study (2.84 MB)
1995 Senate Staff Employment Study (2.92 MB)
1993 Senate Staff Employment Study (2.67 MB)
1991 Senate Staff Employment Study (2.04 MB)
Related Research
Through our Life in Congress project with SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, CMF conducted a study of the benefits and personnel practices in House and Senate personal offices, which was released in 2017. This report goes into detail on a range of benefits policies, but does not include individual salary profiles of common job positions in the House and Senate.
