Yes, a President Hillary Clinton would earn as much as a male president

Of course Hillary Clinton would make the same as president as a man. Presidential salaries are set by Congress, and established by Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that the president cannot increase or decrease his (or her) own salary during his (or her) term.

The last salary increase was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and took effect for President George W. Bush (though Clinton signed the law in 1999, long before the contentious recount of the 2000 election). Clinton doubled the annual presidential salary from $200,000 to $400,000, which is the salary for President Obama.

Now, Congress could pass a bill to decrease the president’s salary by 23 percent on the chance Hillary (or GOP candidate Carly Fiorina) becomes president next year — but that would be ludicrous. Republicans, facing another round of “war on women” attacks, wouldn’t dare decrease the president’s salary. They would have a much easier time increasing the salary, which would mean Hillary would earn more than a man for doing the same job.

I do suspect that if Hillary or Fiorina were to win the presidency, many an article would be written about whether they “truly” earn as much as a man, by comparing their compensation to that of past presidents in terms of today’s dollars. Because of the difficulties in determining what 1789 dollars would equal in today’s dollars, President George Washington is discounted.

“As for the subsequent salaries, $50,000 in 1873 would be about $678,000 today; $75,000 in 1909 would be $1.36 million; $100,000 in 1949 would be $685,000; and $200,000 in 1969 would be about $900,000 today,” according to Slate.

Let the screeching commence. These numbers mean that Bush and Obama both also earned less than past presidents, but I’m sure facts would never get in the way of a good narrative, right?

Hillary responded to the young girl’s question about salary by explaining that “this is one of the jobs where they have to pay you the same.” Again, there is no law or rule — spoken or unspoken — saying women must earn less than men. There is, however, a law that says you must pay men and women the same for equal work.

But the idea that women in America earn less than men — due to discrimination — is just too good a narrative for liberals to let go. But they often overlook the fact that a significant part of the gap is due to the choices men and women make in their careers. Women tend to gravitate toward lower paying fields and take more time off of work for family. Women, on average, also choose to work fewer hours or stop working after having a baby.

And they are free to do that. But those choices bring down the median earnings for all women, which is what creates the pay gap.

The Obama administration knows this, as Council of Economic Advisers member Betsey Stevenson acknowledged last year. During a press phone call, Stevenson said that women were “stuck” earning 77 cents to the dollar that men earn, and that gap “is seen very persistently across the income distribution, within occupations, across occupations and we see it when men and women are working side by side doing identical work.”

Once questions from the press were allowed, McClatchy reporter Lindsay Wise asked about Stevenson’s unequal pay for equal work remark. Stevenson quickly reversed her earlier claim.

“If I said 77 cents was equal pay for equal work, then I completely misspoke,” Stevenson said. “So let me just apologize and say that I certainly wouldn’t have meant to say that.”

Yet the myth persists of a wage gap that can be fixed if we just start holding those darn misogynist patriarchal discriminatory employers accountable.