Obama's broken promise: WH staff averages 8 percent raises this last year

Obama on July 6, 2011: By the way, the people who work in the White House have had their pay frozen since I came in, our high wage folks. So they haven't had a raise in two-and-a-half years, and that is appropriate because a lot of ordinary folks out there haven't either. In fact, they have seen their pay cut in some cases.

With firms projecting a 3 percent increase in base pay for executives, Obama's staff got raises almost three times as much. Apparently at least 12 of the 454 WH employees got raises of at least 40 percent.

The last time we checked in on White House salaries, we found that an astonishing 75% of continuing staffers got raises from 2009 to 2010—a huge number given the fact that, according to compensation experts, most companies had skipped routine raises that year in reaction to the economic crisis that the White House was busy failing to solve. This time around—from 2010 to 2011—the ratio is a little less dramatic. Of the 270 White House staffers who have been there for more than a year, 146—or 54%—received raises. The average salary increase was 8%. If you look at only staffers who got raises, the average increase was twice that.

That's a much bigger raise than the average white-collar worker got. According to a survey conducted last year by the human resources consulting firm Mercer, most firms were projecting a 3% increase in base pay for executives. White House workers did nearly three times as well. Overall, it should be noted, the White House's salary budget contracted slightly, from $38.8 million to $37.1 million, largely because the number of staffers fell. The average salary also dropped from $82,721, or 65% above the median household income, to $81,765—or 65% above the median household income. . . .