FEDERAL & STATE GOVERNMENT’S GENDER HIRING GAP – GENDER STUDY OF HIGHLY COMPENSATED PUBLIC EMPLOYEES

Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and Founder of OpenTheBooks

Politicians reflexively attack perceived gender bias in private companies. But it’s important to ask how those politicians are doing with their own hiring.

Do government payrolls reflect a “gender hiring gap?”

Our OpenTheBooks.com Oversight Report – Federal & State Government’s Gender Hiring Gap analyzed government payrolls:

  • 25 largest federal agencies: the 500 most highly compensated employees from each of the largest 25 federal agencies
  • Congress: the 1,000 top-paid staffers – including payroll analysis of republican and democratic leadership in U.S. House & Senate
  • White House staff
  • Five largest states: the 1,000 most highly compensated public employees within each of the five most populous states: California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois.

We found that top-paid men outnumbered women two to one at the federal level. Across the states, just two in 10 top-earners were women.

Politicians talk about a “war on women” in an effort to score political points. Many of those same politicians have striking gaps between male and female wages and employment on their own payrolls.

That’s pure hypocrisy.

Here are a few examples of what you’ll uncover:

We analyzed the 500 most highly compensated employees at the 25 largest federal agencies. Among 12,500 key employees, we found 7,869 men collectively earned $1.5 billion in compensation and 4,631 women collectively earned $817 million.

Female Congressional employees fared even worse. Among the 1,000 top-paid Congressional staffers, male employees who earn up to $172,500 outnumbered female employees who earn the same 2-to-1. Men, collectively, made $105.4 million, while females earned $58.6 million.

At the state level, we analyzed the 1,000 most highly compensated public employees in each of the five most populous states. In the states, collectively, the men earned $1.6 billion versus $386 million for the women. Across the five states, just seven women were employed in the top 100 highest-earning positions.

At every level of government, the number of women employed in the top-paid positions lags the number of men by an enormous
margin.

Download a PDF copy of our report, click here.

Read our press release, click here.


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