Presidents in Glass White Houses: Female Staff Averages $11K Less than Male Staff

During last night’s State of the Union address, Barack Obama’s passionate speech about equal pay for equal work for women met with thunderous applause. The President said:

“Today, Women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work.”

So isn’t it interesting that his own staff has a massive discrepancy between the salaries of men and the salaries of women?

A financial report disclosing White House staff salaries shows that all of his talk about equal pay for women is a whole lot of hot air.

Using the 2011 annual report of White House staff salaries that was submitted to Congress, an $11,000 difference is clear between the median female employee salary and the median male employee salary.

Of the administration’s 20 top earners, who each took home a tidy $172,200 for their work in 2011, only six of those were women.

The most oft-singled-out leading lady in the President’s testosterone-fueled inner circle is Valerie Jarrett who is one of his closest advisors.

That said, she has been with the President since his days in Chicago and is seen as one of his close personal friends as well as a trusted advisor.

The gender differential has been noticed outside of the White walls, and Dee Dee Myers- the first female press secretary who worked under the Clinton administration- feels it is not doing Mr Obama’s team any favors.

‘Women are Obama’s base, and they don’t seem to have enough people who look like the base inside of their own inner circle,’ Dee Dee Myers told The New York Times.

The hefty salaries, like Ms Jarrett’s, were not the norm, however, as the median salary for women in the White House is $60,000 which is 18 per cent less than their male peers whose median salary was $71,000. (source)

Perhaps people who live in glass White Houses shouldn’t throw stones for dramatic effect and “atta boys” until they reform their own budgets.