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Who Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a politician and educator from the United States with a net worth of $200,000. In 2018, she was elected to the United States Congress as a member of the Democratic Party.
She began serving in January 2019 and is also known by her initialized acronym “AOC.” She is a member of the 14th Congressional District of New York.
Personal Life
Ocasio-Cortez is Roman Catholic. While running for office in 2018, she resided in the Bronx with her partner, Riley Roberts, who works as a web developer. She reported that following the 2021 United States Capital attack, she has been in psychotherapy to cope with the aftermath.
Early Life and Career
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York City, New York on October 13, 1989.
She is the daughter of Blanca Ocasio-Cortez and Sergio Ocasio-Cortez and has a younger brother named Gabriel. Her father, who died in 2012, was a small business owner and her mother cleans homes.
When she was five, the family moved to the suburban neighborhood of Yorktown Heights. She attended Yorktown High School where she was a very intelligent student. She came in second in the microbiology category of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2007.
Her parents sold their family home in Yorktown, NY for $355,000 in 2016.
After finishing high school, she enrolled at Boston University While she was a student, she served as an intern for U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and also helped her family deal with a long probate battle to settle her father’s estate following his death during her second year of college. She has said both experiences had a large impact on her. In 2011, Ocasio-Cortez graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations and economics.
After college, Ocasio-Cortez started a job as a bartender and waitress in order to help her mother from getting her house foreclosed on. She then launched Brook Avenue Press, a publishing firm that portrayed the Bronx in a positive light, and also worked for the nonprofit, National Hispanic Institute.
In 2016, Ocasio-Cortez worked for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign as an organizer. She then traveled throughout the United States, speaking with communities affected by the water crisis and the Dakota Access Pipeline in areas like Flint, Michigan, and the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The activists operating in these sites encouraged her, and it was at this moment that she discovered politics was more accessible than she had previously believed. Soon after, she received a call from Brand New Congress, a progressive candidate recruitment group.
Political Career
Ocasio-Cortez started her campaign in April 2017 while working at a taqueria in Union Square, New York City. She was the first individual to oppose Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in a primary since 2004.
She had to rely on a strong grassroots mobilization effort and took the choice not to accept corporate money because she was significantly underfunded as a comparison to Crowley.
Crowley did not take part in the race’s only planned debate, and the two only met once during the whole contest. Several groups, including MoveOn and Democracy for America, backed Ocasio-Cortez, whereas most prominent political personalities favored Crowley.
Ocasio-Cortez earned over 57% of the vote during the primary election. “Time” called it the biggest upset of the 2018 election so far, with other news outlets making similar statements. She was outspent by a margin of 18 to 1. She then went on to face the Republican nominee Anthony Pappas in the November 6 general election.
Pappas did not actively campaign and Ocasio-Cortez was widely endorsed by progressive organizations, former President Barack Obama, and Senator Bernie Sanders. She won 78% of the vote and became part of the broader Democratic victory in the 2018 midterm elections, allowing the Democrats to gain control of the House of Representatives.
Her win garnered a large amount of media attention. At age 29, she is the youngest woman to ever serve in the United States Congress and also the youngest member of the 116th Congress. She continued to receive high attention throughout her first years in office, even on par with that of the 2020 presidential candidates. She is part of an informal group of progressive members of Congress called “The Squad,” which also includes Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman. The group represents some of the youngest and most progressive members of Congress.
In terms of her political position, Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She supports various progressive policies like single-payer Medicare for All, tuition-free public college and trade school, cancelling outstanding student debt, guaranteed family leave, abolishing U.S.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wealth Disclosures
Alexandria said in an April 2018 report that she has between $1,000 and $15,000 in savings, between $15,000 and $50,000 in checking, and up to $50,000 in student loan debt. In 2017, she made $26,581 working in a coffee shop/taqueria, according to the same form.
She didn’t have any undeclared assets in a blind trust. Her campaign paid her $6,000 as a wage. Alexandra made $174,000 in her first year as a member of Congress.
She is also eligible for a $3,000 yearly living expense credit, as well as health and retirement benefits.
Salary
AOC’s annual Congressional salary is $174,000.
Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
