Mr Rahm Emmanuel, President Obama's White House chief of staff and a longtime Democratic strategist, was first elected as Chicago's mayor in 2011, mostly thanks to the then-Democratic Presidential backing.
Ever since becoming Mayor, Mr Emmanuel has regularly issued official proclamations establishing ‘Women's Equal Pay Day in Chicago’ whilst at the same time calling on all employers to adopt a "commitment to advance equal pay for women."
All very beautiful things to say and do, but according to a newly published report, there is just one public sector branch in Chicago which is not playing by the gender pay equality rules at all: the office of the mayor itself.
Open the Books, a non-profit that gathers public services salary data show that Mr Emanuel has failed to close the gender pay gap on his own payroll since becoming Mayor, with only 12 of the top 100 salaries for city employees in 2016 being women.
On a side note, it can always be worse. For example, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a payroll where only 3 of the top 200 highest-paid city employees are women. Ouch.
But back to Chicago. Mr Adam Andrzejewski, the managing director of Open the Books, explains: "Mayor Emanuel has serious gender gap issues in budgets he manages yet he supported rallies on Equal Pay Day and sent out mayoral proclamations lamenting, ‘women continue to suffer the consequences of unequal pay.’"
"Perhaps he should rectify the disparities in his own payroll first."
"More than 50 years after American women began entering the workforce in droves during the feminist movement of the 1960s, and allegations of gender inequality in the workplace still make the news. Typically, the story stars a politician castigating the private sector.”
The study found further that gender pay disparities are common at all levels of government.
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Definition of a modern-day politician. They've been tagged as being hypocrites for so long, why not just become one?