An enterprising college student, Ariel Boone, has used the White House staff/salary list to do some digging on gender and pay disparities. Here’s what she found:

  • On average, a White House woman earns $9,168 less than a White House man.
  • A woman’s median WH salary is $57,314, while a man’s median WH salary is $65,000.

According to Boone’s research, the gap is due to women being clustered in lower-level positions, while men are more likely to have executive jobs. This chart breaks it down:

WH gender.jpg

It’s not surprising that the White House — an extremely elite, competitive place to work — follows the same patterns we see in the private sector, of women being outnumbered in top positions and over-represented among “assistants.” Just a reminder that even in progressive politics, we have to stay vigilant about mentoring young women, promoting them, and offering both women and men the work-life balance that allows them to maintain careers as they get into their thirties and forties and begin having kids.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.