Pay levels recommended by Clinton Foundation CEO Bruce Lindsey for all of the organization’s employees created a pay gap twice as big for women as for men, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of an internal memo made public Saturday by Wikileaks.
At first glance, Lindsey’s Dec. 15, 2011, recommendations for 2012 salary increases for each of 181 individuals improved salaries for female employees 7.6 percent, compared to a 6.3 percent increase for males, overall.
But deeper analysis of how Lindsey arrived at his recommendations reveals a much different picture of the relationship between pay levels for men and women working for the Clinton Foundation. TheDCNF was unable to determine the gender of seven of the 181 individuals, so data for the seven was excluded from the calculations.
Lindsey used a mid-point market average salary for each position as a benchmark for comparing individual foundation employees’ pay. On that basis, the average male employee salary of $67,277 was 91 percent of the benchmark pay level. The average female salary of $61,070 was only 87 percent of the benchmark.
Lindsey then made recommendations for each individual employee for 2012. The cumulative effect of his recommendations moved the average male employee’s salary much closer to the benchmark than did his recommendations for the average female.
The average male employee salary increased under Lindsey’s recommendations to $71,564, which was 97.1 percent of the mid-point market average salary for each position. By comparison, the average recommended female salary increased to $65,421, which was only 94 percent of the benchmark for each position.
In other words, prior to Lindsey’s recommendations, men on average working for the Clinton Foundation were paid salaries that were within 8.1 percent of the mid-point market average and only 3 percent after his recommendations.
Prior to Lindsey’s recommendations, women on average working for the Clinton Foundation were paid salaries that were within 13 percent of the mid-point market average and only within 6 percent after his recommendations.
Thus, measured by Lindsey’s benchmark, the pay gap was twice as large for women as for men under the CEO’s recommendations.
It should be noted, however, that, measured as the percentage change in the positions under the recommendations compared to the benchmark, the women improved 8 percent, compared to 5.9 percent for the men. Even so, the resulting pay gap remained twice as large for women as for men.
A cover memo from Lindsey explaining his recommendations was addressed to former President Bill Clinton, his daughter Chelsea and the foundation’s third member of its board of directors, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe.
Nowhere in the memo is any mention of concern about closing the pay gap between men and women working for the Clinton Foundation. Lindsey’s focus in the memo was on “measuring our competitiveness with the marketplace.”
These revelations follow the Daily Caller News Foundation’s April 12, 2016, investigation that found an even larger pay gap between men and women working at the highest levels of the Clinton Foundation.
“Male executives at the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation earn 38 percent more than women executives,” TheDCNF reported.
“The foundation’s 2013 IRS form 990 reveals that nearly three times as many men as women occupy the executive suites at the Little Rock, Arkansas-based foundation.
“On average, top male executives at the foundation earn $109,000 more than the top female executives with positions in the C-suite.
“The numbers were in stark contrast to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign-oriented ‘Equal Pay Day’ speech, which she delivered in Silicon Valley Tuesday. She charged that equal pay for women was ‘long overdue.'”
TheDCNF has asked the Clinton Foundation for updated salary information for each of its current employees so that a comparison can be made with the data contained in the Lindsey memo. The request included a promise not to reveal salary information for foundation employees that is not otherwise publicly available.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
