Executive
Waste of the Day: Biden’s Staff Is the Largest Since Nixon
President Biden has a larger staff than even President Richard Nixon, the previous staff numbers record holder, had during his term.
Topline: The White House employed 565 people this year at a cost of $60.8 million, according to a new report from OpenTheBooks.com.
Nixon v. Biden – who had the bigger staff?
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.
Hangers-on and colorful figures
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
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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