Salaries for top staffers at Obama Foundation are outpacing their counterparts at other presidential centers
CHICAGO — Even before Barack Obama left the White House, plans to build his presidential center in Jackson Park were met with resistance as nearby residents feared the center’s very existence would drive up costs in an area the former president says he wants to uplift.
While the economic benefits of the Obama Presidential Center remain in question, what has become clear is that the Barack Obama Foundation’s top staffers are commanding high-end salaries that are not only out of sync with the more modest pay earned by those living in the surrounding neighborhoods but also exceed salaries for counterparts at other presidential foundations.
A Chicago Tribune review of annual tax filings shows the median pay for the 10 highest-paid employees from 2017 through 2020 at the Obama Foundation is just shy of $344,000.
During the same period, the median salary for the 10 highest-paid employees at George W. Bush’s foundation, which is based in Dallas, was $258,000, filings show, while it was $274,000 at the Clinton Foundation, which has offices in both New York City and Little Rock, Arkansas. The foundations for former President Ronald Reagan, located outside of Los Angeles, and Jimmy Carter, in Atlanta, paid their top staffers around $250,000 annually, tax filings show.
The foundations for former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon have smaller revenues and expenses and,
