Raw Data: The White House Gender Pay Gap

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Via AEI and the Washington Post, here’s the gender pay gap among White House staffers during the Obama and Trump administrations:

During the Obama years, the average disparity was 13 cents on the dollar. Under Trump, it’s 37 cents. But before you jump to any conclusions, I don’t think this is because Trump believes women should be paid less than men for the same work. He’s not a neanderthal. He just doesn’t like to hire women for senior roles in the first place. What’s wrong with that? There’s nothing nefarious about it, so all you humorless feminists need to back off.

But here’s what I really wonder: what would this number look like if you didn’t include the communications folks? 50 cents? 60 cents? I don’t know the answer to that, but I can say this: if you exclude women whose job is primarily communications, who will shortly be exiled to Singapore, or who are on Melania’s staff, the Trump White House employs a grand total of two (2) women out of 34 in the top two pay grades: Dina Powell and Marcia Kelly. That’s 94 percent men. In its own way, this is actually kind of an impressive accomplishment, what with this being 2017 and all.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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