Who makes the most in Obama's
White House?

By Roberta Rampton and Margaret
Chadbourn
WASHINGTON(Reuters)

Twenty-
two of President Barack Obama's
top advisers make the top White
House salary of $172,200 per year
- but there is one official who earns
30 percent more.

It's not Chief of Staff Denis
McDonough. Not Obama's senior
adviser and close friend Valerie
Jarrett. Not Cecilia Munoz, who is
overseeing White House efforts on
immigration reform, nor Lisa
Monaco, who advises Obama on
homeland security and
counterterrorism.

The best-paid person of the 460
people who work at the White
House is Seth Wheeler, a senior
adviser at the National Economic
Council, who is crafting Obama's
strategy on housing finance.
One of the newest appointees,
Wheeler earns $225,000, according
to the annual White House report
on its $37.9 million payroll released
on Friday.

Wheeler has been detailed to the
role from the Federal Reserve
where the pay scale is higher, a
White House official explained.
It also means he earns more than
his boss, Gene Sperling, the director
of the National Economic Council,
who earns the White House limit of
$172,200.

At the Fed, Wheeler was chief of
staff for the Office of Financial
Stability Policy and Research.
He is an ex-Morgan Stanley
banker who worked for former
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson
during the Bush Administration,
and was a key architect with the
Obama administration's mortgage
modification program, helping craft
the signature housing aid program
known as the Home Affordable
Modification Program.

"His pay reflects the anomaly of
the Fed pay scale," said Phillip
Swagel, who served in the
Treasury Department under
President George W. Bush.

"It is noteworthy that the NEC is
pretty political so it's fascinating
that they have a Fed employee in
a political position," Swagel said.
Federal employees who work for
banking regulators, including the
Fed, have higher pay scales than
employees of other federal
departments, said Julia Gordon,
director of housing finance and
policy at the Center for American
Progress, a liberal think tank.

"I'm sure if he went back to
Morgan Stanley, he'd be making
10 times that," Gordon said.

Wheeler replaces Jim Parrott, who
had been detailed to the White
House from the Department of
Housing and Urban Development,
and earned $144,385 last year.
Parrott left the White House in
January, and recently joined the
Urban Institute.

Wheeler's salary approaches that
of Vice President Joe Biden, who
this year is poised to earn
$230,700. Obama's salary is
$400,000.


The salary report can be found at -
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
briefing-room/disclosures/annual-
records/2013.

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