As we all know, the easiest way to tell if a person is better than you or not is by seeing who makes more money. That’s what makes Legistorm such a nice tool for comparing your self-worth to those who work on the Hill. According to the Washington Post this information has always been available publicly under the law, albeit in books that require schlepping down to the Hill. But now with Legistorm, you can look up everyone’s salary information online pretty easily by the person’s last name, the Representative or Senator who they work for, committee, leadership office, administrative office, or state. The salary numbers are reported quarterly so you have to do a little adding to find the annual salary, plus the Washington Post article reports that some staffers say they may include bonus figures that don’t accurately reflect the base annual salary. It also doesn’t factor in any bribes or under-the-table goodies provided by lobbyists.

Since Hill salaries are at the sole discretion of individual Congressmen, this is a great way to tell if your personal Representative is cheap. Is he saving the taxpayers money by paying his LAs slave wages, or is he bloating the government budget by paying a living wage? Now you can find out. The only thing that this database is really lacking is the salary information on all the lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, consultants, PR people, ad agencies, special interest group flacks, and all the other DC residents who help our Legislature come up will new bills. That info would be quite illuminating…