Former Obama White House allies at his foundation are pulling six-figure salaries while rank-and-file workers say benefits were rolled back and are pushing to unionize.
Breitbart reported on a Fox News Digital exclusive that dug into the Obama Foundation’s 2025 tax filing and found a nonprofit flush with high-paid loyalists even as lower-level staff described mounting pressure and thinner support.
The numbers are not subtle. CEO Valerie Jarrett, one of Barack Obama’s closest longtime advisors and a former senior White House official who has led the foundation since 2021, was listed at $771,000. Other top figures with Obama-era ties also landed deep in six figures while the Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side ballooned to a $1 billion price tag, nearly triple the original estimate.
At the same time, rank-and-file employees went public with a letter saying workloads climbed, benefits shrank, and leadership support felt thin. That is the contrast at the heart of the story: a private foundation built around a progressive brand, paying its inner circle handsomely, while the people doing the day-to-day work look for a union.
The 2025 tax filing showed Jarrett at the peak of the pay scale. Behind her sat a roster of familiar names from the Obama years and allied Chicago politics.
Christina Tchen, former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, was listed at about $431,000. Michael Strautmanis, a former Obama campaign and White House aide, came in around $404,000. Laura Lucas Magnuson, a former White House communications official, was near $396,000. Robbin Cohen, a former real estate executive tied to the family of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, was listed at roughly $666,000. Ammar Rizki, a former Cook County chief financial officer, was around $400,000.
Altogether, the filing reported 172 employees receiving more than $100,000 in salary out of 342 reported workers, roughly half the staff. Fox’s coverage framed it as nearly 200 people pulling six-figure pay.
That share stands out against other presidential nonprofits. Filings for foundations tied to presidents from Jimmy Carter through George W. Bush generally showed about 25 percent or fewer of employees in the $100,000-plus range, with the George W. Bush operation the exception at 37 percent. Other presidential foundation CEOs more often sat in the half-million range. The Reagan Foundation’s CEO was listed at $735,000 while overseeing the library operation in Southern California, still below Jarrett’s figure in the Fox roundup.
While executives cleared large packages, foundation employees circulated a public letter that did not sound like a victory lap for shared prosperity.
The workers wrote:
"Amidst increasing workloads we have seen our benefits rolled back and support from leadership to be minimal."
That single line is the staff side of the ledger. Heavier work. Reduced benefits. Little backup from the top. The push to unionize followed from those complaints, not from a theoretical debate about nonprofit management.
Emily Bittner, the foundation’s vice president of communications, defended the pay structure when Fox News Digital pressed the issue.
Bittner said:
"The Foundation pays our employees rates that are competitive with the market."
She also put scale on the table:
"We have more than 500 employees worldwide, roughly 300 of whom are based at the Center."
Competitive with the market is the official line. The tax filing is the record. Readers can hold both at once.
Jarrett has been overseeing the final years of construction on the long-delayed Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side. The project’s price tag hit $1 billion, nearly triple what planners first projected. Fox’s reporting also noted the center is not framed as a traditional presidential library.
The foundation’s position, as summarized in the coverage, is that construction and operational costs are covered by revenues and private donations. Infrastructure improvements around the large campus, though, were paid for by taxpayers. That split matters. Private dollars may build the showcase. Public dollars still support the surrounding work.
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Bob Grogan did not treat the salary news as an accounting curiosity. He tied the pay packages to a broader critique of how the project uses public resources and political branding.
Grogan said:
"The Obama Center is another far-left political operation that acts as a non-profit while using taxpayer dollars to make Barack Obama’s inner circle rich."
Grogan had previously criticized the foundation’s use of public parkland for a private enterprise. The new filing gave him fresh numbers to put behind that argument.
Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University accounting professor who specializes in nonprofit finances, told Fox the share of six-figure earners looked high next to a typical charity.
Mittendorf said:
"That’s clearly higher percentage than your average nonprofit."
He then offered the institutional caveat the foundation’s defenders will lean on, that this is not a local food bank, but an expertise-heavy shop closer to a think tank, where pay curves run differently.
That comparison cuts both ways. If the Obama Foundation wants to be judged like a high-end policy shop, it can own the pay. It should also own the optics of a progressive monument where the top ranks are packed with former White House hands, nearly half the reported staff clears six figures, the campus cost hit a billion dollars, and the rank and file say benefits were rolled back while the workload rose.
The pattern in the filing is straightforward. Valerie Jarrett, at $771,000, sits above even the Reagan Foundation CEO figure cited in the same reporting. Cohen’s roughly $666,000 package lands near the top tier. Tchen, Strautmanis, Magnuson, and Rizki all clear the high three-hundreds to low four-hundreds. Layer on 172 workers above $100,000 out of 342, and the foundation’s wage structure tilts hard toward the professional class that already staffed the Obama years.
The workers’ letter does not name those executives. It does not need to. It describes the other half of the house: more work, fewer benefits, thin leadership support. Union talk is what happens when that gap stops being abstract.
Bittner’s headcount claim, more than 500 worldwide, about 300 at the center, only sharpens the picture. A large global footprint and a pricey Chicago campus still produced a tax filing in which roughly half the reported employees took home six figures, while staff who went public said the burden fell downward.
Presidential foundations are private nonprofits. They are not federal agencies. They still trade on a public legacy, sit on or next to public improvements, and ask the country to treat them as civic institutions. When the Form 990-style numbers show an inner circle paid like corporate brass and the workforce answers with a union drive, the brand and the balance sheet are in open tension.
Taxpayers already covered the infrastructure around the South Side campus. Donors and foundation revenue may cover the rest of the build. None of that requires six-figure depth for nearly half the reported staff while the people closest to the daily grind say support from leadership went missing. Accountability runs both directions, up the org chart and out to the public that was sold a civic landmark, not a patronage shop.
When a foundation built on hope pays its old guard like a luxury firm and leaves the rank and file hunting for a union, the message notes itself: the inner circle got the raises; everyone else got the workload.
