Open Thread: Women in Obama WH Make Less Than Men

April 13th, 2012 10:42 AM

For years, we've heard from liberals that women of America are being deliberately discrimated against in the form of lower salaries at their workplaces compared to men. Conservatives have responded that things aren't that simple since in many cases, women like more flexible hours and office arrangements. Undeterred, the left has harped on this point.

Perhaps it won't any more, though, now that it's been revealed that the Obama White House pays its female employees less than its male ones:

Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show.

According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).

Calculating the median salary for each gender required some assumptions to be made based on the employee names. When unclear, every effort was taken to determine the appropriate gender.

The Obama campaign on Wednesday lashed out at presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney for his failure to  immediately endorse the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, a controversial law enacted in 2009 that made it easier to file discrimination lawsuits.

President Obama has frequently criticized the gender pay gap, such as the one that exists in White House.

“Paycheck discrimination hurts families who lose out on badly needed income,” he said in a July 2010 statement. “And with so many families depending on women’s wages, it hurts the American economy as a whole.”

It is not known whether any female employees at the White House have filed lawsuits under the Ledbetter Act.

Do you think the Obama White House will change anything now that this has been revealed, or do you think they won't do anything and continue spewing the same stale talking points?