Ocasio-Cortez promises to pay her interns a LIVING WAGE

Ocasio-Cortez has criticized her House colleagues for not living up to the ideals they espouse when it comes to paying their interns.

She’s not going to be a hypocrite, apparently, and vows to pay her interns a living wage:

BUSINESS INSIDER – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that she will pay her congressional interns at least $15 an hour after slamming her future colleagues for offering unpaid internships and failing to pay staff a “living wage.”

“Time to walk the walk,” the Democratic congresswoman-elect tweeted on Tuesday. “Very few members of Congress actually pay their interns. We will be one of them.”

She tweeted a link to an article in the Washington Post in which her campaign manager, Saikat Chakrabarti, confirmed that interns in her office would be paid “at least” $15 an hour.

Ocasio-Cortez’s pledge comes a day after she criticized her future colleagues in Congress, including Democrats, for not paying interns.

A report in 2017 from nonprofit group Pay Our Interns found that in the House, just 8% of Republicans and 3.6% of Democrats pay interns. It found that in the Senate, 51% of Republicans and 31% of Democrats pay their interns.

From 2019, both the Senate and the House will have funds to pay interns. The House will be given $8.8 million to distribute across members’ offices, and the Senate will be given $5 million.

Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged the new fund, saying it would give $20,000 per member of Congress for their interns. Each member of Congress is allowed four interns at a time.

It’s all well and good that Ocasio doesn’t want to be a hypocrite by not paying her interns. But it’s so easy to not be a hypocrite on someone else’s dime. Everything she’s getting in her salary and for her interns comes from the taxpayer.

If she were running her own business and had to live and die by the profits and losses of her company, then it’d be far more admiral of her trying to live up to her socialist ideals. But doing it off of someone else’s money is at best a hollow gesture.

Then again, socialism is full of hollow gestures, which is why it is so unsustainable.


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