Hoyer: WH Should Pay Women Equally To Men

Minutes after President Obama ripped America’s gender “wage gap” during the State of the Union of Address, House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told Breitbart News “of course” he thinks the White House should pay its female staffers equally to any equal work done by male White House personnel. 

“Well, of course,” Hoyer responded when asked by Breitbart News. 

However, according to the D.C. based think tank the American Enterprise Institute, female White House staffers are paid less than 87 cents for every dollar paid to male staffers at the White House. This is a gender wage gap of more than 13 percent. AEI says. 

A Washington Times analysis of White House pay records from 2011 showed that while a few top women in the administration are paid top salaries, the majority of female staffers are paid less than their male counterparts, earning a median salary of $60,000, around 18 percent less than men, whose median salary is $71,000. 

Additionally, in 2009, The Washington Post reported a number a female aides complained about the amount of access male staffers in the White House get to the president. 

Former White House communications director Anita Dunn , was quoted in Ron Suskind’s book as saying the White house place “would be in court for a hostile workplace… Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.” 

Hoyer said he was unaware of the White House salary reports and said, “The president clearly believes in equal pay. One of the first bills he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter bill, which was equal pay for equal work, and the president believes in it strongly and he talked about it tonight.”  

During his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama brought up the issue of gender wage gaps, saying: “Today, Women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong and, in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work.”  

President Obama did not address the gender wage disparities at the White House in his speech.