Topline: The White House employed 565 people this year at a cost of $60.8 million, according to a new report from OpenTheBooks.com.
Richard Nixon was the first president to employ more than 500 staffers and President Joseph Biden has set a new unfortunate record. Donald Trump employed 413 people in the last year of his presidency, and Barack Obama had 468 staffers.
Key facts: Biden’s staff turnover rate has now reached 77% since he took office; only 125 of the 560 people who worked in the White House in 2021 are still there.
There was a 43% turnover rate in the last year, as 225 people who were on the payroll in fiscal year 2023 are gone.
Biden employs 106 “special assistants to the president” working on topics like gun violence and global gender policy and earning between $120,000 and $140,000. He also still has seven staffers with “pandemic response” in their title, even though he declared the pandemic “over” in September 2022.
Men slightly outearn women in the White House. There are 222 male staffers making an average of $115,719 and 343 women earning an average of $101,511.
The payroll also includes 24 people working for First Lady Jill Biden at a cost of $2.5 million. She employed only eight people in fiscal year 2022.
Jill Biden has her own foreign policy advisor, multiple speechwriters, a “trip director” and even an “advisor to the senior advisor to the First Lady.”
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: Biden’s advisors include leaders with ties to prior administrations and politically controversial initiatives.
Neera Tanden, a domestic policy advisor earning $180,000, was previously Biden’s choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget. She withdrew her candidacy after highly partisan social media posts turned some senators against her.
Jake Sullivan, Biden's National Security Advisor, who also makes $180,000, helped negotiate the Iran deal under Obama. He was also a deputy chief of staff to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Summary: The federal bureaucracy has expanded in several ways under Biden, and his record payroll is just one small example.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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