WASHINGTON — Like his counterparts at the Senate barbershop, House of Representatives scissorman Joe Quattrone has cut the hair of the nation’s political elite.

Also like the Senate’s longtime barber, Mario D’Angelo, Quattrone is an Italian man who wears a tie to work and cultivates a down-to-Earth persona.

But there is one big difference: their business models.

While the Senate barbershop is federally subsidized, the House barbershop is a private business. Its three employees, one of whom is part time, are independent contractors. The House barbershop was privatized in 1994, a decision that House Republicans made after they took control of the lower chamber for the first time in decades.

Quattrone, 78, started working at the House barbershop in March 1970, an era when the shop had 16 barbers, each of whom received federal pensions and benefits. He does not complain about his reduced pay — he makes less than $22,000 a year from commissions — because he knows times have changed.

“We’ve gone through a lot of changes, with members going back to their districts on the weekends and fewer customers because of the extra security that the House has put up after 9/11, but we’re all self-employed,” Quattrone told The Daily. “Money’s not everything. I love coming to work every day. Would you rather go to a job you hated for $50,000 or one you liked for $40,000?”

The dueling business models of the congressional barbershops have produced different financial results.

While the Senate barbershop required a $300,000 federal bailout last year, the House barbershop turned a profit, Quattrone told The Daily. And while Senate Hair Care Services, the formal name for the Senate barbershop, is not charged a dime for its work space, House Cuts pays the government $2,000 to $3,000 in rent each year, Quattrone told The Daily.Making House Cuts profitable has not been easy for Quattrone, the shop’s owner.

The prices for his services are cheaper than those of the Senate. While the Senate barbershop charges $23 for a trim with water but no shampoo and $20 for a shave, the House barbershop charges $17 and $10.

Plus, his shop is in the Rayburn House Office Building, farther from the two adjoining House buildings than is the Senate’s barbershop. And he has three staff members versus 11 in the Senate.

Even Democrats say the fiscal woes of the Senate barbershop do not reflect well on the upper chamber. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., told The Daily that “the House does the people’s business and efficiently, while the Senate doesn’t give taxpayers and voters top priority.”

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said privatizing government does not appeal to him, but “I would like to know why the Senate barbershop is running its business into the red.”