AEI: Obama White House Pays Women 15.8 Percent Less Than Men

The Obama White House pays its female staffers 15.8 percent less on average than its male staffers, according to an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute.

AEI economics scholar Mark J. Perry looked at the salaries of all White House employees, which are publicly available, and averaged out those who were male and female.

Female staffers earned on average $65,650 a year to male staffers' $78,000, Perry found.

"Therefore, female staffers in the Obama White House currently earn 84.2% of the median salary for male staffers, or 84.2 cents for every $1 men earn, and there is a 15.8% gender pay gap at the White House," Perry wrote. "That pay gap is slightly smaller than the 17.9% gender pay gap at the White House last year, but is still almost two times the average gender pay gap for Washington, DC of 9.2% according to the most recent data from the Department of Labor."

Still, Perry noted, President Barack Obama makes presidential proclamations annually for National Equal Pay Day. This year, Obama marked April 14 as the date at which a woman must work into 2015 to earn the same as a man earned by Dec. 31, 2014.

"On average, full-time working women earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, and women of color face an even greater disparity," Obama said at this year's proclamation. "I call upon all Americans to recognize the full value of women's skills and their significant contributions to the labor force, acknowledge the injustice of wage inequality, and join efforts to achieve equal pay."

Women working at the White House have to work only until March 14 to achieve parity with men, Perry said, but still might want to complain.

Perry said that Obama and gender activists constantly lecture the public on gender pay gap disparities being the result of discrimination. If that is true, he said, the Obama White House is being hypocritical on the issue.

"President Obama can’t have it both ways," Perry said, "either: a) there are gender pay differences throughout the economy and in any organization including at the White House, which can be explained by factors other than gender discrimination including age, years of continuous work experience, education, differences in positions, hours worked, marital status, number of children, workplace environment and safety, industry differences, etc., or b) any gender pay gap in aggregate, unadjusted salaries automatically exposes gender discrimination — including the White House — and Obama needs to explain why he is 'waging a war on his women staffers' by paying them less than men on average."

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