Study: Democrats Pay Black Staffers 3/5ths What They Pay Whites

Obligatory “If this were Republicans” comment:

African-American staffers on Democratic campaigns were paid 70 cents for each dollar their white counterparts made. For Hispanic staffers in Democratic campaigns, the figure was 68 cents on the dollar.

And a recent study by PowerPAC+, funded by a major Democratic donor, revealed that less than two percent of spending by Democratic campaign committees during the past two election cycles went to firms owned by minorities.

Now, you could justify this somehow by saying the black staffers were working lower level positions that didn’t get as much pay, and that might be true in some instances, like this:

“Most minority staffers get hired in campaigns in field jobs, and field jobs pay less,” explained Jamal Simmons, a Democratic political operative.

“The problem is: They don’t hire African-Americans, Latinos in the parts of the campaigns where they spend the most money,” Simmons added. “The most money in campaigns is spent in communications, polling and data. In those parts of the campaign, it’s very much mostly white.”

But then, there’s this:

As an example of this “race pay gap,” Mak discussed the experience of political operative Michael Gomez Daly, who worked on two congressional campaigns in 2012 with similar budgets.

On one campaign, Daly, who describes himself as “a very light-skinned Hispanic,” was brought in as a field director, primarily for his skills as a Latino operative who could reach out to the Hispanic community.

But on the second campaign, where they did not know he was Hispanic, “I just came in as ‘Michael Daly’ instead of ‘that Latino operative,’” he said. “Right off the bat, they offered me twice the amount for the same job.”

So, if you’re Latino, you deliberately get paid half if you’re working for Democrats?

But Republicans are the racists?

That reminds me of something:

For Democrats, 2+2=Race.