McCain, Clinton Pay Women Better than Obama
- From: Mike <yard22192@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:57:41 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200804/POL20080430a.html
McCain, Clinton Pay Women Better than Obama
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
April 30, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - Non-intern female employees did better working on the
Senate staffs of John McCain and Hillary Clinton during the latest
public reporting period than they did working for Barack Obama,
Cybercast News Service determined through an analysis of payroll data
published by the Secretary of the Senate.
Both McCain and Clinton also employed more female than male staffers,
while Obama employed more males than females. However, Obama's staff
was more balanced between male and female staffers than either
McCain's or Clinton's.
Also, McCain and Clinton had more female than male staffers making six-
figure salaries, while Obama had more male than female staffers making
six-figure salaries.
The data were taken from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate,
which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007.
Only in the office of McCain, an Arizona Republican and his party's
presumptive presidential nominee, was the average salary for women
higher than for men. See Chart
On the staff of Clinton, a New York senator running for the Democratic
presidential nomination, women outnumbered men by more than 2-1 and
held most of the highest paying jobs, yet the average pay for women
and men on Clinton's staff was almost equal. See Chart
A spokesman for Clinton's office, however, said that the salary
averages calculated for her office by Cybercast News Service could be
skewed because seven women and two men working on Clinton's Senate
staff during the period in question were given additional compensation
by her presidential campaign for outside work on the campaign.
The average pay for women who worked on the Senate staff of Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama of Illinois was at least $6,000
below the average pay for men working on Obama's staff. This held true
whether the average pay was calculated for all of Obama's staff, only
for his non-intern staff, or only for his staff making more than
$23,000 on an annual basis. Obama employed slightly more males than
females.
Last week, both Clinton and Obama cut away from their busy campaign
schedules to return to Washington to vote in favor of the Lilly
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would extend the limit on how long an
employee can wait before suing an employer for pay discrimination.
McCain was campaigning that day and did not vote, but has expressed
opposition to the legislation.
The legislation was named after Lilly Ledbetter, who was a supervisor
at Goodyear Tire & Rubber's plant in Gadsden, Ala. She sued for pay
discrimination before retiring after 19 years because she had made
$6,500 less per year than the lowest paid male supervisor.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out her case saying she waited
too long to file a complaint. The court said that under the 1964 Civil
Rights Act, an employee must sue within 180 days of a decision
regarding pay if alleged discrimination is involved. The bill sought
to change the law, but Democrats could not muster the needed 60 votes
to override a Republican filibuster.
Cybercast News Service calculated three different sets of average
salaries for the male and female components of each of the three
Senate offices: 1) the averages for all male or female employees
listed in the Secretary of the Senate's report, 2) the averages for
all male and female employees listed in the Secretary of the Senate's
report who were not described as "interns," and 3) the averages for
all male and female employees who were paid more than $23,000 on
annual basis. The analysis also looked at the number of men and women
on each staff earning more than $100,000 per year. (See chart of staff
compensation for McCain, Obama, Clinton)
(It was decided to do the averages for all male and female staffers
earning more than $23,000 because Sen. Clinton's office, which did not
employ any interns, said the averages that Cybercast News Service
calculated for her full staff included some workers who were only part-
time employees. However, Clinton's office did not indicate which
employees those were. The lowest paid, non-intern employee for McCain,
meanwhile, was paid just over $23,000 on annual basis, and McCain's
office confirmed that this person was a full-time employee. Thus,
calculating the average salaries for all employees earning $23,000 per
year or more in each of the offices seemed one reasonable way to
compare the salary structure across the three offices. Aditionally,
one employee of a Senate coalition who received small payments from
both Clinton and Obama was excluded from the analysis.) See Chart
As noted, female staffers were paid less than men on average in
Obama's office no matter which measure was used. Female staffers in
McCain's office were paid more than men on average no matter which
measure was used. Clinton provided an almost identical average pay to
males and females paid over $23,000 per year, but paid proportionally
more to males than females, when averages were calculated for her
entire payroll.
By one measure, however, women did do better in Obama’s office than in
McCain’s. When the average salary was calculated for all people on the
office payroll, including interns, Clinton paid women an average of
$51,948, Obama paid women an average of $48,729, and McCain paid women
an average of $47,898. (Clinton’s and Obama’s average salaries are
relatively unaffected by adding the interns because Obama employed
only one intern, while Clinton employed none. McCain, by contrast,
employed 23 interns during the period, including 15 men and 8 women.)
Obama Pays Men More
Of the five people in Obama's Senate office who were paid $100,000 or
more on an annual basis, only one--Obama's administrative manager--was
a woman.
The average pay for the 33 men on Obama's staff who earned more than
$23,000 per year was $59,207. The average pay for the 31 women on
Obama's staff who earned more than $23,000 per year was $48,729.91.
(The average pay for all 36 male employees on Obama's staff was
$55,962; and the average pay for all 31 female employees was $48,729.
The report indicated that Obama had only one paid intern during the
period, who was a male.)
A spokesman for Obama's Senate office, who asked not to be named, told
Cybercast News Service, "Senator Obama believes that bringing together
people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints is critical
to tackling the tough challenges our nation faces today. He has
followed that principle in assembling his Senate staff, which he
believes is the finest in Congress."
The highest paid employee on Obama's Senate staff was his male Chief
of Staff Peter Rouse, who earned $80,329 for the six-month period, or
$160,658 per year. He was followed by Legislative Director Christopher
Lu, who earned $64,115 for the half year, or $128,230 per year. The
highest paid woman on Obama's staff was Carolyn Mosley, his
administrative manager, who earned about $50,000 for the six-month
period, or about $100,000 for the year.
Clinton has Largest Female-to-Male Ratio
Clinton had the largest female-to-male ratio in her office: 48 women
and 22 men. Among the four staffers who were earning more than
$100,000 per year on Clinton's staff during the period covered by the
report, three were women.
Among her employees earning more than $23,000, Clinton paid men and
women virtually the same average salary. The 22 men in that category
in Clinton's office earned an average annual salary of $56,731.34,
while the 43 women earned an average annual salary of $56,050.20.
There's no glass ceiling for any gender in Clinton's office, Clinton
Senate spokesman Philippe Reines said.
"Our ceilings are literally so high that you'd need a ladder to reach
it," Reines told Cybercast News Service . "So the only thing keeping
any of us down is Newton's Law - and nothing else."
Clinton has had more than 150 people on her staff over the last seven
years, mostly people with strong ties to New York State, and has a
"balanced and diversified staff," Reines said.
Reines also pointed to staff changes since the last Secretary of the
Senate report covering the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007.
"You are looking at a single six-month period that does not accurately
reflect either the current or historical facts, both in terms of make
up and salary," he said. "For instance, several members of the staff,
including myself, are paid both through the Senate and through the
senator's presidential campaign."
Seven women working for Clinton's Senate office earned a combined
$320,000 on an annual basis from the Clinton presidential campaign,
Reines said. Further, two men working for the Senate office earned a
combined $50,000 on an annual basis from the campaign.
He said these figures should be calculated into the average salaries
for Clinton's office. Otherwise, he said, the average could be "low by
tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars." Clinton's office
provided only the aggregate compensation that the campaign paid to
these staffers, not the individual salaries paid to each of them.
Neither McCain's nor Obama's office responded to a question from
Cybercast News Service as to whether they had congressional staff who
were also separately compensated by their campaigns for work outside
the office. The analysis reported here deals strictly with the tax-
funded staff compensation records reported by the Secretary of Senate.
Clinton's highest paid congressional employee was Tamara Luzzatto, her
female chief of staff, who earned $70,360 for the six-month period, or
$140,720 on an annual basis. The highest paid male in Clinton's office
was Deputy Chief of Staff Kris Balderston, who earned $66,791 for the
half year, or $133,582 on an annual basis.
McCain: Fewer staff, but highest averages for women
Excluding interns, McCain got by with a smaller Senate staff than his
presidential rivals.
He employed a total of 69 people during the reporting period, but 23
of them were interns. Of his non-intern employees, 30 were women and
16 were men.
After excluding interns and adjusting the pay for employees who didn't
work in the office for the entire six months, the average pay for the
30 women on McCain's staff was $59,104.51. The 16 non-intern males in
McCain's office, by comparison, were paid an average of $56,628.83.
The top two highest earners on McCain's staff were his female
legislative director Amy Begemen, who earning $68,864 for the half-
year measured (or $137,728 on an annual basis); and female
Communications Director Eileen McMenamin, who earned $55,431 for the
six months (or $110,862 on an annual basis). The highest paid man in
McCain's office was Richard H. Fontaine, a legislative assistant, who
earned $53,753 for the six months (or $107,506 on an annual basis).
Formula for Analysis
The information for the analysis on the three presidential candidates
was taken from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate that covered
the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007.
CNSNews.com sent its analysis of each office's payroll data to the
congressional office that was the subject of the analysis so they
could verify the gender of staff members, salaries and other
information. McCain, Clinton and Obama each responded.
Because the report only covered a half year, the salaries listed for
those six months were simply multiplied by two to determine the annual
amount. In several cases, staff members only worked a portion of the
six-month period. To arrive at an annual salary for these employees,
Cybercast News Service divided the total amount they were paid by the
number of days they worked, then multiplied that number by 365.
.
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