WikiLeaks Released Hacked Emails Showing Average Salaries For Top Clinton Foundation Employees

Hacked Emails Show “Discrepancies” Among Pay For Top Clinton Foundation Employees. Hacked emails promoted by WikiLeaks show that aides to eventual Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton discussed “discrepancies” among top Clinton Foundation employees in early 2015, when the candidate was still preparing to launch her presidential campaign. One aide wrote that the average “salary of the highest paid men is $294,157.50, while the [average] salary of the highest paid women is $181,576.66” and that the “median salary of the highest paid men is $346,106, while the median salary of the highest paid women is $185,386.” The aide notes that the numbers came from the foundation’s Form 990, a public financial disclosure form filed with the IRS in 2013. [WikiLeaks, accessed 10/24/16]

Fox Claims Clinton Is A Hypocrite For Reported Gender Pay Disparity At Clinton Foundation

Ed Henry: Emails “Suggested” Clinton Foundation Was “Not Paying Women Equally,” Which “Sounds Like A Little Hypocrisy.” Fox News chief national correspondent Ed Henry hyped the emails, which he claimed “suggested” that the foundation was “not paying women equally.” Henry added that the situation “sounds like a little hypocrisy.” From the October 24 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom:

MARTHA MACCALLUM (CO-HOST): Just going through a brand new release from WikiLeaks that reveals major worries with the Clinton campaign about workplace discrimination within the campaign and the foundation and gender inequality in terms of how men and women were paid at the Clinton Foundation.

[...]

BILL HEMMER (CO-HOST): The emails revealing concerns about unequal pay for women working at the Clinton Foundation. Ed Henry is on that, live in D.C. Ed, you've been going over this again today. What are the revelations about pay equity at the foundation?

ED HENRY: Well Bill, it’s interesting because Hillary Clinton, one of the staples of her stump speech is to say that Donald Trump doesn't treat women fairly and has abused them and that she’s all about issues like pay equity to make sure women are treated fairly. Well, look at this email that has emerged from within the Clinton Foundation as there were stories in 2015 about the White House maybe not paying women equally. Quote, “Given the story yesterday about pay equity at the State Department, I wanted to flag something that came out of our research on pay equity at the Foundation. There are huge discrepancies, and it wouldn't surprise me if they went here next,” as in the media pressing them. We haven't really seen the media, by and large, do that. But it’s interesting that within the foundation itself, their own research had suggested they were not paying women equally. Sounds like a little hypocrisy. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/24/16]

The Disparity Comes From A Very Small Sample

Clinton Foundation Tax Form Shows Only Top 11 Employees. A 2013 report filed by the Clinton Foundation, which the aide in the email cites as the basis for the disparity, shows the salaries of merely 11 employees at the Clinton Foundation. Of the 11, three were women and eight were men. [Clinton Foundation 2013 report, accessed 10/24/16]

PolitiFact: “The Statistical Pool Is Too Limited And The Methodology Is Too Crude To Demonstrate Evidence Of Hypocrisy.” When Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made a similar claim in May 2016, PolitiFact found it to be misleading, writing that he was “looking at only a small number of foundation employees while ignoring the central point of the equal pay argument -- which is whether the employees are doing the same work and being compensated differently because of their gender.” The fact check went on to say that “the statistical pool is too limited and the methodology is too crude to demonstrate evidence of hypocrisy.” From the May 27 fact check:

Trump’s claim includes spin we’ve seen before. He’s looking at only a small number of foundation employees while ignoring the central point of the equal pay argument -- which is whether the employees are doing the same work and being compensated differently because of their gender.

Though the Trump campaign did not respond to an inquiry, we’re fairly certain his data comes from the Clinton Foundation’s IRS form 990 -- the tax form that nonprofit groups are required to file annually. The forms -- which are available for public inspection on the foundation’s website -- require the organization to list the compensation for its highest-paid officials. For the Clinton Foundation, that has typically been in the range of eight to 12 officials per year.

[...]

The salaries of eight to 12 executives do not prove the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton are hypocrites when it comes to equal pay.

[...]

In addition, the types of jobs disclosed in the tax form run the gamut from CEO to information technology director to senior fellow to human resources director. Few organizations would pay the CEO the same as an IT director, so finding differences doesn’t necessarily mean much without a much deeper analysis of the employer’s hiring practices.

[...]

[T]he statistical pool is too limited and the methodology is too crude to demonstrate evidence of hypocrisy. [PolitiFact, 5/27/16]

Fox Has A Pattern Of Promoting Misleading Attacks On Democrats Over The Gender Pay Gap …

Sean Hannity’s Claim That Clinton “Paid Female Staffers A Lot Less Than Men” Was Rated “Mostly False.” PolitiFact debunked Fox host Sean Hannity’s claim that as senator, Clinton “‘actually paid female staffers a lot less than men,’” rating the claim “Mostly False.” In the fact check, PolitiFact noted that Hannity’s analysis “ignores critical facts that would give a different impression” and rated his claim “Mostly False.” [PolitiFact, 5/21/15]

Fox Hyped False Claims That The Obama White House Didn’t Pay Men And Women Equally. FoxNews.com and Fox host Greg Gutfeld hyped a deceptive claim in 2012 that “women who work in the Obama White House generally earn less than men.” The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman noted that the data indicated that “men, on average, are occupying higher-paying jobs in the White House ... not that women are being paid less for doing the same job.” [Media Matters, 10/17/12; FoxNews.com, 10/19/12]

… While At The Same Time Dismissing It

On Fox, TheBlaze's Dana Loesch Labeled The Gender Pay Gap “An Absolute Myth.” During a January 13 appearance on Fox’s The Kelly File, TheBlaze’s Dana Loesch claimed that pay inequality “is an absolute myth” and attributed the pay disparity “to women’s choices.” [Fox News, The Kelly File, 1/13/16]

Fox's Megyn Kelly Dismissed The Gender Pay Gap As A “Meme.” Fox host Megyn Kelly dismissed gender pay inequality on the April 4, 2014, edition of The Kelly File, claiming that the disparity was just a “meme.” Conservative commentator and TheBlaze host Dana Loesch agreed, claiming that the issue was no more than a “myth” that is “based upon a bunk study.” [Fox News, The Kelly File, 4/4/14]

Fox Reporter: Gender Income Equality Is “A Myth That Has Endured For Years.” Fox News correspondent Doug McKelway used a gender wage gap question from the second 2012 presidential debate to claim that the idea that women earn 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn is “a myth that has endured for years.” [Fox News, Happening Now, 10/17/12]

Fox's Steve Doocy: “Women Have Gotten Equal Pay For Decades.” Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy lamented President Obama's proposed executive order preventing pay discrimination at the workplace by falsely claiming that “women have gotten equal pay for decades.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/7/14]

Fox's Eric Bolling: Gender Pay Gap Exists Because “Men Take More Risks.” Fox host Eric Bolling acknowledged the existence of a gender pay gap on the February 23, 2015, edition of Fox’s The Five, but asserted that it exists solely because “men take more risks” than women. [Fox News, The Five, 2/23/15]

Hannity Guest Gavin McInnes: Women “Choose To” Earn Less Than Men Because “They're Less Ambitious.” Fox guest Gavin McInnes argued on the May 14, 2015, edition of Hannity that women earn less than men “because they choose to,” adding that women are “less ambitious” than men and “should be at home with the kids":

GAVIN MCINNES: The big picture here is women do earn less in America because they choose too. They would rather go to their daughter’s piano recital than stay all night at work, working on a proposal, so they end up earning less. They’re less ambitious, and I think this is sort of God’s way, this is nature’s way of saying women should be at home with the kids, they’re happier there. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/14/15]

Fox's Stacey Dash Falsely Claimed Gender Pay Gap Was Solved In 1963. Fox contributor Stacey Dash criticized actress Patricia Arquette for speaking out about pay inequality during her Academy Award acceptance speech on the February 23, 2015, edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered. Asserting that it was no longer an issue, Dash said, “Patricia Arquette needs to do her history. In 1963, Kennedy passed an equal pay law. It's still in effect.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 2/23/15]

The Gender Pay Gap Still Persists

EPI: The Pay Gap “Can’t Be Explained Away” By Factors Other Than Gender. According to the findings of an exhaustive October 20, 2016, report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the gender pay gap “can’t be explained away” by accounting for other factors that might impact women’s salaries. The report found that, as of 2015, the median hourly wage for working women in the United States was just 82.7 percent of the median wage for men and concluded that “convergence” toward pay equity has “stalled” over the past two decades. [Economic Policy Institute, 10/20/16]

AAUW: In 2014, Working Women Were Paid “Just 79 Percent Of What Men Were Paid.” The American Association of University Women (AAUW) found working women in the United States earned “just 79 percent of what men were paid” in 2014, according to a spring 2016 report. According to the AAUW, the median annual earnings in the United States for men and women that year were $50,383 and $39,621, respectively:

[American Association of University Women, Spring 2016]

IWPR: Women Are Paid Less Than Men In Nearly All Occupations. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), which analyzed median weekly earnings data for men and women across 119 separate occupations, wrote in an April 2016 report that women earn less than their male counterparts “in nearly all” professional settings. The study also concluded that professions dominated by women “tend to have lower median earnings than male-dominated occupations.” According to IWPR, in 2015 an average American women who worked full time earned just 81.1 percent as much per week as an average working man (emphasis added):

Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women.

[...]

Altogether there are only four occupations in which women’s median earnings are slightly higher than men’s, but 108 occupations in which women’s median earnings were 95 percent or lower than men’s (that is, a wage gap of at least 5 cents per dollar earned by men). During 2015, the median gender earnings ratio for all full-time weekly workers was 81.1 percent, reflecting median weekly earnings for all female full-time workers of $726, compared with $895 per week for men. [Institute for Women’s Policy Research, April 2016]

EPI: Women’s Hourly Earnings Are Less Than Men “Across The Board.” According to an April 2015 analysis of hourly earnings in 2014 from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), men out-earn women “across the wage distribution.” According to EPI, men and women at the lowest end of the income scale are far closer to pay parity than are those at higher incomes, a phenomenon for which “the minimum wage is partially responsible” because “it sets a wage floor that applies to everyone”:

[Economic Policy Institute, 4/7/15]

NWLC: The Gender Pay Gap Could Cost Women More Than $430,000 Over The Course Of Their Careers. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) found that the current gender wage gap would cost an average American woman $430,480 in lost earnings over the course of a 40-year career. The lost career earnings are even greater for African-American women and Latinas:

Based on today’s wage gap, women would lose $430,480 over the course of a 40-year career. For Latinas the career losses mount to $1,007,080, and for African American women the losses are $877,480. If we don’t act to close the wage gap, a woman just starting out today stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of her career, undercutting her ability to provide for herself and her family, as well as her retirement security.

This “lifetime wage gap” exists across the country: in every state, women’s career losses based on today’s wage gap would amount to about one-quarter of a million dollars or more -- and in seven states women’s career losses would amount to more than half a million dollars. [National Women’s Law Center, accessed 4/12/16]

JEC: “Women Of Color Suffer Both Because Of Their Gender And Their Race.” According to an April 2016 report by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), gender pay disparities are particularly acute for women of color in the United States. African-American women in the United States who work full time earn just 60 percent of what white men earn, while Hispanic women in the same category earn just 55 percent as much:

Women of all races and ethnicities face a pay gap when compared with men of the same race or ethnicity. However, women of color suffer both because of their gender and their race.

African-American women earn only 60 percent of what white men earn, and Hispanic women only 55 percent of what white men earn. Asian women face the smallest gap relative to white men, earning 84 percent of white men's earnings. [United States Congress, Joint Economic Committee, April 2016]

World Economic Forum: U.S. Ranks Just 74th Of 145 Countries On Wage Equality. According to a November 2015 update to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report, the United States ranks just 74th among 145 countries in terms of wage equality for similar work. The ranking represents a considerable drop from the prior year, when the U.S. ranked 65th in the world for pay equity. [World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2015; CNN Money, 11/18/15]

Glassdoor: Gender Pay Gap Persists After Accounting For All Known Factors. According to a March 2016 report by Glassdoor analyzing more than half a million salaries for full-time employees in the United States, “men earn 24.1 percent higher base pay than women on average.” Even after researchers accounted for other factors, a gender pay gap persisted at 5.4 percent:

[Glassdoor, March 2016]