President Obama brags about having signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Play Restoration Act, which supposedly helps women earn as much as men in comparable jobs, at the drop of a hat.
So here’s a Hypocrisy Alert (from CNS News):
Seventy-percent of the White House staffers who made the top annual salary of $172,200 in 2012 were men and 30 percent were women, according to a White House report on staff compensation.
In addition, men on the White House staff are paid, on average, $86,260.89 and women are paid, on average, $76,162.65. That means the average man on the White House staff is paid about $10,098–about 13 percent–more than the average woman.
In Obama's White House, women on average earn only 88.3 percent of what the men earn.
Unless these women are working significantly fewer hours, then it looks like something is wrong with the way the Obama White House compensates its staff.
Interestingly, according to the story, the gender discrepancy in pay in the Obama White House is similar to that in Barack Obama’s senate office.
We don’t know the reasons behind these pay discrepancies.
Still it must be noted that the White House, for whatever reason (and I am not ruling out the kind of sexism one sees in liberal guys), has exercised a discretion it doesn’t believe private employers should have. It is sort of like the environmentalists who take private jets to global warming conferences.
So maybe the president’s incessant talk about concern for women is just talk.
You might like to read this 2012 piece from The Hill on how the Ledbetter Act can actually harm women.