WASHINGTON (Reuters)

Women make up 60 per cent of the White House staff appointed by President Joe Biden, while people from racially or ethnically diverse communities account for 44 per cent, the White House on Thursday (July 1) as it released an annual personnel report to Congress.

The White House said the report – which includes the names, titles and salaries of all political appointees – showed that the Biden administration was the most diverse in US history, in line with the Democratic president’s commitment to build an administration that looks like America.

The report also showed a pay gap between men and women of just under one per cent, with the women earning US$93,752 on average, while men earn US$94,639.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Chief of Staff Ron Klain are among the top earners, drawing a salary of US$180,000 a year, as is Elizabeth Hone, a longtime Federal Communications Commission attorney hired as a special adviser on broadband, who gets US$183,164 a year.

The administration had hired 1,500 presidential appointees across the federal government in the first 100 days in office, double the number hired by any prior administration in that time period.

The Biden administration’s “roughly equal” pay for women and men stands in sharp contrast to the former Trump administration, which had a gender pay gap of 20 per cent, the Obama administration, which had a gender pay gap of 11 per cent in its final year in office.

The Pew Research Center reported in May that the overall pay gap for women and men in the United States was about 16 per cent, which means it would take an average woman 42 extra days of work a year to earn what a man did.

Women and people of color have slightly less representation in the 59 senior staff members at the White House, with women accounting for 56 per cent, and people from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds accounting for 36 per cent.