The White House Chief of Staff Doesn't Make a Ton of Money, but That's Not the Point

Regardless of who is sitting in the White House, it's a truth universally acknowledged that the people working in that building work too many for not enough money. Government service doesn't pay that well, and the people who work in those jobs typically don't take them because they're looking for a payday.

Following the news that Donald Trump had selected Susan Wiles to serve as his chief of staff during his administration, many wanted to know more about how much the Chief of Staff gets paid. Here's what we know about their salary.

Salaries in the White House are capped at around $180,000, and while the exact figure varies from year to year, the chief of staff usually makes roughly that amount of money. The president makes $400,000 a year, and his top-level aides make a little less than half of that.

Of course, being chief of staff does come with a lot of free meals and travel, but it also means that you're basically on call all the time.

On a per hour basis, the pay is good, but it's definitely not the kind of job you take just because the salary is excellent. Instead, you take it because of the power and influence you will have to shape the course of events both in the U.S. and around the world, and because once you have been named chief of staff, you might be able to parlay that job into higher paid opportunities after you've left the White House.

This leads us to the all important question of what the chief of staff even does at the White House. This can vary from administration to administration, but generally, the chief of staff is the person responsible for managing all of the White House staff, as well as all policy development that happens in the White House and the building's daily operations.

Often, the chief of staff is the second most powerful person in the White House, as many problems that arrive on the president's desk often come to the chief of staff first. The chief of staff is often the person charged with determining what gets to the president and what decisions can be made somewhere else inside the bureaucracy of the White House.

It's a crucial role in any administration, but chiefs of staff are used in various ways. Donald Trump went through several people during his first go-around in that role, and it seems clear that each of them struggled to manage him in a way that would keep him focus on the task at hand.

Regardless of how effective a given chief of staff is, though, what's clear is that they are meant to act on behalf of and even as an extension of the president. The president can't be everywhere at once, which is why he has a staff to begin with.