Obama Foundation: half of reported staff paid over $100,000 as workers push to unionize

Right · 2The Obama Foundation's 2025 tax filing reports 172 employees paid more than $100,000, roughly half of its 342 reported employees, according to a Fox News Digital analysis. 1 2 Right · 1Fox says that is a higher share than at five other presidential nonprofits it examined, which it put at 37% for the George W. Bush Presidential Center, 29% for the Carter Center, 23% for the Clinton Foundation, 13% for the Reagan Foundation and 10% for the George and Barbara Bush Foundation, using 2024 filings. 1 Right · 1CEO Valerie Jarrett, a longtime Obama adviser who has led the foundation since 2021, is reported at $771,000. The same Fox article also says her salary climbed to nearly $755,000 in 2025, and the two figures are not reconciled in the text. 1

Right · 2Fox reports that other former Obama White House or campaign figures are among the top earners: Christina Tchen (about $431,000), Michael Strautmanis (about $404,000) and Laura Lucas Magnuson (about $396,000). It also lists Robbin Cohen, a former Pritzker Realty Group head, at about $666,000, and former Cook County chief financial officer Ammar Rizki at about $400,000. 1 2 Right · 1Fox compared Jarrett's pay with the CEOs of the other foundations, which it said were all lower: Reagan about $735,000, George W. Bush $661,000, Carter $531,000, George and Barbara Bush $426,600 and Clinton $425,000. 1 Right · 1The foundation's payroll and benefits bill was $50.4 million in 2025, up from $18.5 million in 2018, and it took in about $159 million in revenue last year, nearly $151 million of it contributions and grants. 1

Right · 1Emily Bittner, the foundation's vice president of communications, said it pays "rates that are competitive with the market" and that it has more than 500 employees worldwide, about 300 of them at the Center. She said the board uses comparability data and a compensation consultant to set executive pay, and she pointed to higher CEO pay at the Getty Trust, Rockefeller Foundation and Mellon Foundation. The foundation did not provide an updated payroll breakdown. Fox notes that the 2025 filing covers a period ending months before the Presidential Center opened in June, and that Getty has a far larger endowment. 1 Right · 2Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University nonprofit-finance professor, told Fox the share above $100,000 is "clearly higher" than at a typical nonprofit. He said it is probably not unusual for an expertise-heavy, think-tank-style organization, and that Jarrett's pay is not unusual for a CEO of an organization with over $1 billion in net assets. 1 2 Right · 2Illinois Republican Party Chairman Bob Grogan, a longtime critic of the foundation's use of public parkland, called the Center "another far-left political operation" using taxpayer dollars "to make Barack Obama's inner circle rich." The foundation says construction was privately funded and operations are covered by revenue and private donations. Public money paid for infrastructure improvements around the campus. 1 2

Right · 1Meanwhile, workers organizing as Obama Workers United with AFSCME Council 31, including visitor services, cleaning, museum, technology, education and global-programs staff, are pushing to unionize. In a public letter they cite rolled-back benefits, rising workloads and minimal leadership support, and say these conditions have driven experienced colleagues out. 1 Right · 2The story was published as the Obama Presidential Center's cost reportedly reached $1 billion, nearly triple the original estimate. Breitbart's version relies on Fox's reporting. 1 2