Recently, we discovered that Hillary Clinton asked the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to pay her $300,000 for a speech and 90-minute appearance at the university’s foundation dinner this fall. In an effort to put this sum of money into perspective, we’ve calculated the amount of minimum wage jobs this speech fee would cover for one year.
With a $7.25 hourly wage, an employee working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year would earn an annual income before taxes of $15,080. That means that Hillary Clinton’s requested $300,000 would cover 19.9 minimum wage jobs for one year.
Of course, this is the same as paying one individual’s minimum wage income for 20 years. So, Hillary Clinton makes in 90 minutes at an event what a minimum wage worker makes in 20 years.
The $300,000 is just for Hillary’s speech fee alone. The former secretary of State also typically demands a private plane be made available for her travel to and from the speaking engagement and requests to be put up in a “presidential suite,” among other things. Requirements like these likely bring Clinton’s bill up thousands of dollars more, so that’s probably at least one more yearly minimum wage that could be covered by the expenses.
A check for $300,000 could also pay for a more than decent home, six annual median household incomes in the United States, 244 annual household telephone bills, and 41 annual food and grocery bills. That’s a lot of practical spending.
Of course, Clinton insists that the money she earns for speeches is not a token of her greed because all of it goes to the Clinton Foundation. This is Hillary’s most self-serving move yet; she both keeps the money under her control and succeeds — at least from her perspective — in looking saintly.
Someone should tell Hillary Clinton that she must be mistaking her scrunchie for a halo.
