New analysis of the 2020 median salaries in the White House found a more than $33,000 pay gap between the median salary for men and women staffed under President Trump — making wage discrimination greater in the Trump administration than it is nationally.
The 19th, a news organization focused on gender and politics, reports that while the median salary for a male White House staffer is $106,000, the median salary for women is $72,700.
The staggering finding translates to women staffers making roughly 69 cents to every dollar earned by a man working for Trump — a gap that exceeds the national pay gap that sits at women earning 82 cents to the each dollar earned by men, according to Census Bureau data from 2018.
The salaries, accurate as of June 26, reflect what economists call the “raw” gender pay gap — not making adjustments to the scale for differences in experience, education, title or other factors which further complicate a long history of wage differences between men and women.
The finding comes as the President’s prominent women supporters have attempted to vouch for Trump’s record on women and have claimed that the President prizes gender equality.
In a video clip aired during the Republican National Convention last month, former Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called the President “a champion for women.” First Lady Melania Trump also falsely claimed during her remarks that her husband had “an unprecedented number of women in leadership roles” in his administration.
In 2017, Trump rolled back an Obama-era rule requiring large companies to report gender and race pay data in a move intended to help close the wage gap through greater pay transparency.
The gap still existed, but was smaller among staffers who worked under former President Barack Obama’s administration.
In Obama’s final year, women were being paid 89 cents on the dollar, with that rate dropping to 63 cents on the dollar during the first year Trump was in office, according to an analysis by the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
Trump’s courtship of female voters is crucial as 2016 exit polls showed that 53 percent of the electorate was female.
The White House told the 19th that average salaries have increased by roughly 7 percent for female staffers over three years, while decreasing for male staffers by about a half-percent.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany responded to the 19th’s findings saying in a statement that the President “implements policies that empower women.” She highlighted historic low unemployment rate for women in 2019 as an example — even though historic high unemployment soars across the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“President Trump has taken unprecedented action to support women and girls,” McEnany contended.
