Obama to return 5 per cent of salary in solidarity with furloughed federal workers

WASHINGTON – The White House says President Barack Obama will return 5 per cent of his salary to the Treasury in light of automatic spending cuts that have led to furloughs for thousands of federal workers.

A White House official says Obama decided to return part of his salary each month for the rest of the year to share in the sacrifice that government employees are making. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The president makes $400,000 per year. A 5 per cent pay cut amounts to a little less than 1,700 per month.

The decision is retroactive to the beginning of March. That’s when $85 billion in federal spending cuts kicked in after lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to undo them.