Michelle Obama, doing well by doing good

“I went from college to law school to a big ol’ fancy law firm where I was making more money than both of my parents combined,” the First Lady said, describing her time at Princeton and Harvard Law.  “I thought I had arrived.  I was working on the 47th floor of one of the largest buildings in the city of Chicago. And I thought, well, I must be doing okay.”

   

But something was missing, and it became apparent to her when her father died and she also lost a good friend to cancer.  “For the first time I had to think about life and the life that I was building for myself, and I had to ask myself whether, if I died tomorrow, would I want this to be my legacy, working in a corporate firm, working for big companies?” Mrs. Obama said.  “And when I asked myself the question, the resounding answer was, absolutely not.”

Thinking she had “more to give,” Mrs. Obama quit her job.  As she considered what to do next, she thought of the things she cared about and enjoyed most, and “service was always somewhere in there.”  So she “started doing a bunch of crazy things.”  She worked for the city of Chicago.  She started an AmeriCorps organization called Public Allies.  Service changed her life, she told the group.  “I could be some rich lawyer somewhere,” she said, instead of being involved in public service.

What the First Lady did not mention in her story of service and sacrifice was that, while she might not have made as much as a top lawyer, the helping industry actually paid her pretty well, at least after her husband’s political career took off.

Her last job was at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she worked in the area of community and external affairs.  In 2004, she made $121,910.  In 2005, right after her husband was sworn in as the U.S. senator from Illinois, she was promoted to vice president, and her pay jumped from $121,910 to $316,962.  In 2006, she was paid $273,618.  And in 2007, with her husband’s presidential campaign underway, the university paid her $103,633 for part-time work.  She was on unpaid leave of absence during the campaign year of 2008.

Despite a salary in the top two or three percent of American earners, Mrs. Obama, during her campaign appearances, sometimes complained about money.  She often bemoaned having to pay her college loans for years after she left school — a problem remedied, she said, only after her husband wrote two best-selling books.  And during a February 2008 appearance in Zanesville, Ohio — median household income there is about $38,000 a year — Mrs. Obama told a group of working women that she and her husband spent a lot of money on their children. “I know we’re spending — I added it up for the first time — we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth. And summer programs.  That’s the other huge cost.  Barack is saying, ‘Whyyyyyy are we spending that?’  And I’m saying, ‘Do you know what summer camp costs?'”

In a July, 2008 campaign appearance, Mrs. Obama also downplayed the helpfulness of the government’s $600 stimulus check, which she said might “buy a pair of earrings.”  As First Lady, Mrs. Obama recently attended another community-service-oriented event, at a Washington area food bank, wearing a pair of sneakers by the French company Lanvin, said to cost $540.  The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the black boots she wore to break ground at the White House vegetable garden were by the designer Jimmy Choo and cost $775.  Her extravagances have attracted some media attention, but so far the coverage has not been widespread.  However, in the past — Nancy Reagan comes to mind — much attention was paid to the cost of the First Lady’s clothing.  It could happen again.