I’ve done a little more digging over at Legistorm and here are some fun numbers about the payrolls of North Carolina’s congressional delegation.  This time I’ve included the Senators, both of whom are Republican (Dole and Burr).  Please keep in mind that these numbers are extrapolated from the first quarter 06 numbers reported by House members, and 1/2 of the payroll reported by the Senators between 10/1/05-3/31/06.  That means they may not be exact to the dollar but they’re definitely close:

• Total Payroll for Congressional Staffers in 06, not including the members’s salaries: $17,579,880
• Cost per NC resident to cover Congressional staff salaries in 06 (not including the members’ salaries and based on US Census’s most recent Estimate of NC Population): $2.02
• Total Number of staffers: 359 (306 full time)
• Avg. pay per staffer: $48,969.03
• Avg. pay per staffer in Senators’ offices: $80,135
• Avg. pay per staffer in Rep.’s offices: $42,849
• Highest payroll for a NC member of the House: $969,552 (McIntyre, D-7th)
• Lowest payroll for a NC member of the House: $645,382 (McHenry, R-10th)
• Average payroll for Republican House members: $802,231
• Average payroll for Democratic House members: $906,577
• Average payroll for Senators: $2,023,399
• Average number of full time staffers for Senators: 42
• Average number of full time staffers for Representatives: 17

If you want to be a well-paid Congressional staffer in NC you
definitely want to first try and get on a Senator’s staff (they pay
almost 90% better than House members do) but since there’s a limited
supply of those jobs you’re more likely to get a job on the House side.  I had my suspicions that the amount that members of the House were paying might have a correlation with how long they’d been in office, so I decided to rank them by seniority and then by their payroll.  Below is a list of Representatives in descending order (longest serving to shortest) and in parentheses is their rank in terms of payroll (1 is highest payroll and 13 is lowest).

• Rep. Coble (2), R, 11th term 
• Rep. Price (4), D, 9th term
• Rep. Taylor (10), R, 8th term
• Rep. Watt (5), D, 7th term
• Rep. Myrick (3), R, 6th term
• Rep. Jones (9), R, 6th term
• Rep. McIntyre (1), D, 5th term
• Rep. Etheridge (8), D, 5th term
• Rep. Hayes (11), R, 4th term
• Rep. Miller (7), D, 2nd term
• Rep. Butterfield (6), D, 2nd term (served a partial term in 04)
• Rep. Foxx (12), R, 1st term
• Rep. McHenry (13), R, 1st term

My suspicion was borne out somewhat.   If you want to work for a Representative who pays well then you need to work for one who’s been in office for at least five terms and if you can’t hire on with one of them then get in on the ground floor with Rep. Butterfield;  he’s showing early signs of being a generous boss, at least financially.

Or just go after the Democrats, since with the exception of Rep.’s Myrick and Coble the Republicans appear to be pretty tight with the dollar.  Here’s the ranking by party, again 1 is the top paying office:

1. Dem
2. Rep
3. Rep
4. Dem
5. Dem
6. Dem
7. Dem
8. Dem
9. Rep
10. Rep
11. Rep
12. Rep
13. Rep

Of course the real money play is to get a job with one of these folks, put in a few years and then go work for a lobbyist.  The trick, of course, is to make connections on the right side of the aisle (i.e. for the party that’s in the majority) so you may want to wait until after this November to apply.