By: Brent Scher

Nearly all of top Chicago salaries went to men in Emanuel's fifth year as mayor

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has used the gender pay gap to score political points, but a new study by government transparency nonprofit Open the Books shows his city is one of the worst offenders. 

Emanuel, a longtime Democratic operative who was former President Obama's first White House chief of staff, was first elected as Chicago's mayor in 2011. He has regularly issued official mayoral proclamations establishing Women's Equal Pay Day in Chicago and calling on all employers to adopt a "commitment to advance equal pay for women."

The data compiled by Open the Books show Emanuel has failed to close the gender pay gap on his own payroll, where just 12 of the top 100 salaries for city employees in 2016 were for women.

"In Rahm Emanuel's City of Chicago, just 12 females made the list of the top 100 most highly compensated employees last year," explains Adam Andrzejewski, who runs Open the Books out of Chicago. 

Andrzejewski was critical of Emanuel's decision to issue mayoral proclamations such as the one from April before he rectifies the disparities he himself controls.

"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,’" Andrzejewski said. "Perhaps he should rectify the disparities in his own payroll first."

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