White House Pays Women 80 Cents for Every Dollar Paid to Men

CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 7/3/2017, 10:35 a.m.
Women working in the White House earn an average salary of 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male …
Women working in the White House earn an average salary of 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male colleagues, a CNN analysis found.

By Caitlin Ostroff

(CNN) -- Women working in the White House earn an average salary of 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male colleagues, a CNN analysis found.

That's a gender pay gap wider than the national average of 82 cents on the dollar, according to the Labor Department.

The average salary among men working in the White House was $105,404, according to an analysis of the White House's annual report to Congress, which was released Friday. For women, it was $84,409. That's $20,995 less on average.

The disparity is primarily due to more women filling lower-ranking jobs. Half the men working at the White House make $115,000 or more annually, while half the women $70,629 or less.

At $187,100, senior policy adviser Mark House is the top earning White House staffer. Among the 22 second highest paid employees, who make $179,700, only six are women.

Trump has not made the wage gap an issue, but his daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump tweeted her support of closing the gender pay gap on April 4, writing "#EqualPayDay is a reminder that women deserve equal pay for equal work. We must work to close the gender pay gap!"

In terms of the number of employees working for the White House, the staff is almost evenly split, with about 46 percent of the 377 employees being female and 54 percent male.

As of 2015, the federal government gender pay gap was 11 percent, according to a report by the Office of Personnel Management.

CNN calculated the gender gap using employee names and research. To calculate average salary, three employees reporting no earnings, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and one employee whose gender CNN was unable to confirm, were excluded. The White House has not responded to CNN's request for comment.