WH Comm. Director on Unequal White House Pay: ‘We Can Always Do Better’

‘I make the same amount of money as my counterpart, Jay Carney ... is our pay transparent? Yes it is’

PALMIERI: "In terms of the White House, we have equal pay for equal work, all department heads make the same amount of money. I make the same amount as my counterpart, Jay Carney. We have the same amount as -- women department heads are the same as men. And you know, that is something that the president is very proud of. We try to recruit people of the younger levels, and we're trying to recruit a lot of women, young women to come work here, a lot of diverse, young, diverse staff as well. And the point is, you want to get people in the pipeline, right? You want to get people here that can --"
JANSING: "What did the people that did this study, Jennifer, say -- and you know this -- they say they crunched the numbers exactly the same way as the numbers are crunched to get 77 cents on the dollar. And using that exact same formula, it's 88 cents on the dollar. Is it at least worth looking at by the White House?"
PALMIERI: "Well you can always do -- we can always do better by having more women in senior places. We do a pretty good job of that, we've promoted a lot of women from within, we do a pretty good job of that. But, you know, everyone can always do better. But is the pay transparent? Yes it is. That's what the executive order does today. Do we have a lot of women in senior positions, and are we recruiting and promoting more? Yes, that's always true. Now, what we think the Republicans in Congress should do, if they have these same concerns, they can easily vote to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which is a pretty reasonable standard. It's just asking people within the workplace be allowed to ask their colleagues what they're making. And that helps to get at part of making up the gap between 77 cents and a dollar. It doesn't get you all the way there, because like I said, a lot of women are still just in lower paying professions, you've got to deal with that. But it would help. And so if Republicans in Congress are concerned about it, and you know, it would be great if they would support the legislation."
JANSING: "Jennifer Palmieri, thanks for coming on the program."

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