Report: Trump campaign pays female staff much less
Donald Trump's campaign is paying its male staffers roughly a third more than its female workers, according to an analysis by the Boston Globe.
The Globe took a look at the campaigns of Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, who the outlet found paid her male and female team members about the same.
Examining the Trump campaign's payroll for the month of April, which offered up the most recent publicly available data from the Federal Election Commission, the report found that female staffers earned an average of approximately $4,500. The men took home $6,100 -- about 35 percent more than their female counterparts. Female workers made up just 28 percent of Trump's total staff, and of the top 15 highest-paid employees that month, just two were women.
Contrast that to Clinton's campaign payroll in April, which is made up of about 53 percent women. Clinton's female workers averaged $3,710, while the men made about $3,760. Of the top 15 highest-paid employees, eight were men and seven were women.
Clinton has long championed equal pay for equal work legislation, prioritizing its importance even before she officially launched her presidential campaign in June last year. On the campaign trail, she has backed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would enact policies to help alleviate the wage gap women face making on average 78 percent of what men make nationally.
Trump's campaign, meanwhile, has faced scrutiny before over its pay practices. One former employee in Iowa blamed her firing on sexual discrimination by the Trump campaign, charging that men were getting paid more for the same jobs women had. At the time, Trump told the New York Times that "my people tell me she did a terrible job."
Trump, for his part, has said that "women should have absolute access to capital." In August last year, Trump told MSBNC in an interview that "If they do the same job, they should get the same pay."
But he warned against implementing federal legislation to ensure equal pay.
"When it comes to categorizing people, men and women into a group, it gets to be very dangerous," the billionaire said. "When you have to categorize men and women into a particular group and a particular pay scale, it gets very -- because people do different jobs."
"It's very hard to say what is the same job," he said. "It's a very, very tricky question."
Trump's campaign has not responded to a request for comment about his staffers' pay disparity.