President Obama plans to return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury in solidarity with federal workers who are going to be furloughed as part of the automatic budget cuts known as the sequester, an administration official said Wednesday.
"The president has decided that - to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government that are affected by the sequester - he will contribute a portion of his salary back to the Treasury," an unnamed White House official told the news site Politico on Wednesday.
The contribution would amount to $20,000 of Obama's $400,000 salary.
The move will be retroactive to March 1 - the day the cuts started to kick in - and will remain in effect for the rest of fiscal 2013, the official said.
The president's salary is set by law and cannot be changed during his term, so he will write a check to the government starting this month, the official noted.
"Everybody at the White House and the broader" executive office of the president "is dealing with the consequences both, in many cases, in their own personal lives but in how we work here at the White House, which is true across the federal government because of the impact of the sequester," Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Monday.
