Chicago’s Democratic Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, made the so called “gender pay gap” a cornerstone of his political campaign. Unfortunately for him, recent financial disclosures have revealed that his Mayoral Office is the worst offender – paying comparably experienced women far less than their male peers.
The government transparency advocate, “Open the Books,” has discovered that of the city’s top 100 salaried public servants, only 12 are women.
“In the Rahm Emanuel’s City of Chicago, just 12 females made up to the list of top-100 highly compensated employees last year,” explained Adam Andrzejewski, who operates Open the Books show out of Chicago. Andrzejewski criticized Emanuel’s decision of issuing mayoral proclamations such as the one from April before he rectifies the disparities from his office.
“Mayor Emanuel has serious gender gap issues in budgets he manages yet he supported rallies on Equal Pay Day and sent out mayoral proclamations lamenting, ‘women continue to suffer the consequences of unequal pay,’” Andrzejewski said. “Perhaps he should rectify the disparities in his own payroll first.”
“Open the Books,” detailed analysis of the city was done during a larger study that had compiled the salary figures from the 25 largest federal agencies, congressional offices, and the White House. It had also analyzed the five most populous states—California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois.
The highest salary in Chicago went to the aviation commissioner – Ginger Evans, a woman who had brought in $400,000 in 2016. But all the next 14 best-compensated employees were men. The amount of money brought in by the highest paid men further dwarfed the amount that was being paid to the women. “The 88 top-earning males made $17.5 million while the females earned $2.5 million,” stated Andrzejewski in his study.
Andrzejewski’s study also found that the gender-pay disparities were highly common at all levels of government and in the offices of politicians from both sides of the aisle. He had suggested that the politicians should stop directing criticism at the private sectors and address the inequality that exists within their own offices and authorities.
“More than 50 years had passed when American women began entering the workforce in multitudes, during the feminist movement of the 1960s; allegations of gender inequality in the workplace still make it to the news,” Andrzejewski further said. “Typically, the story stars a politician castigating the private sector.
“Our study shows that government is one of the worst offenders when it comes to the gender-based pay gap. Perhaps it’s time an army of ‘fearless girls’ storms the government and demand positive results, not rhetoric, from our politicians,” he added.
Emanuel is not the only mayor guilty of highlighting the same gender-pay gap agenda as a political issue while failing to address the same problems in their very own domains. The latest publication of Open the Books delivered its findings last month that the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is overseeing a payroll; where only 3 of the top 200 highest-paid women employees were found.
Ah, the hypocrisy of a Democrat. Is there anything more satisfying than seeing these liberals fail to meet their own standards?
