What White House Jobs Pay
The spouse of the president also gets their own staff and the person who leads it gets a nice paycheck. Stephanie Grisham took over as Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady and Spokeperson, assuming the chief of staff role in April 2020 after Lindsay Reynolds left the position. Grisham had held previous White House roles, including White House press secretary. In the Obama White House, first lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff was Christina Tchen and she made $176,461 per year.
The National Economic Council has existed since 1993 and it serves the White House by providing leadership in all areas of economic policy. Trump has several employees with the title of special assistant to the president for economic policy, all of whom make at least $120,000 per year, but as deputy director of the National Economic Council, the young Francis J. Brooke, Jr., earns $158,000 — that’s slightly under the $168,000 Andrew Olmem earned in the same role. In the same job under Obama, Jason Miller made $149,654 in 2016.
If you look at the White House salary report, Larry Kudlow’s title is only listed as assistant to the president for economic policy, but he also serves as director of the National Economic Council. He’s had that job since April 2018 after working in President Reagan’s administration and as a host on CNBC. Kudlow makes $183,000 for his work directing the president’s economic policies. Under Obama, Jeff Zients was paid $176,461 for the same job.
Every workplace needs a crack information technology staff and the current White House pays its IT director $168,000 per year. That job has been held by Roger L. Stone since February 2019, after Chris Herndon left the post. The position was created by Obama, making it one of the newer positions in the White House. David Recordon held that position in 2016 during Obama’s tenure and made $121,752 to keep the office’s tech running smoothly.
The director of the White House travel office is responsible for booking travel and accommodations for the gaggle of White House press corps members who accompany officials on trips, as well as receiving payment in return from various media outlets. Bethany Pritchard took over the job in April 2019 after starting as a staff assistant in Trump’s administration in 2017. Pritchard got a pay boost this year (her 2019 salary was $92,400), and her salary is quite a bit better than Ashley Tate-Gilmore’s, who did the job for Obama and was paid $77,625 in 2016.
The White House’s director of stenography is apparently one of the few positions not driven by political alignment. Before Dominique Dansky Bari landed the job for Trump’s White House in June 2017, she worked as deputy director of stenography under Obama starting in 2014. The job entails managing a staff of official White House stenographers, who take notes on all meetings and deliver transcripts to the press after official events. While Dansky Bari got a salary increase in 2020 up from $95,500 in 2019, the director of stenography under Obama, Margaret Suntum, made $117,846 in 2016.
The role of White House social secretary has been called the “least controversial” job in the building by the Washington Post. It’s a role that involves planning and executing the many social events hosted by the White House. First lady Melania Trump chose Anna “Rickie” Niceta as social secretary because of her two decades of experience as an event planner. Niceta makes $168,000 a year in the role, compared to the $119,723 made by Deesha Dyer in 2016 under Obama.
President Trump has been praised for keeping his White House payroll lean and that extends to two of his closest advisors. The president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, hold official titles as advisor and senior advisor to the president, respectively. They are both listed in the White House salary report but there is a nice, round $0 next to each of their names, as both have chosen to forgo a paycheck for their role.
There are several jobs that fall under the umbrella of Oval Office operations and Molly Michael (pictured on the left) has one of the most important. Her official title is deputy assistant to the president and executive assistant to the president and that includes a salary of $158,000 per year for essentially being Trump’s right-hand woman. Michael got a significant raise in 2020; her 2019 salary was $120,000. There are eleven other people in Trump’s administration with executive assistant titles, each of whom makes between $48,000 and $77,700 per year.
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