Solidarity! Obama returning 5 percent of salary to stand with furloughed workers

Sarah D. | 3:20 PM on April 03, 2013

Boy, what a swell guy! Isn’t he just swell? Somebody bake him a pie!

The New York Times is reporting that the Man-of-the-People in chief will give 5 percent of his annual $400,000 salary back to the U.S. Treasury as a gesture of solidarity with workers being furloughed due to sequestration:

The voluntary move would be retroactive to March 1 and apply through the rest of the calendar year, the [Obama Administration] official said. The White House came up with the 5 percent figure to approximate the level of automatic spending cuts to non-defense federal agencies that took effect that day.

Over a ten-month period, that’ll work out to $16,666.67.

“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,” the official said.

Shared sacrifice, baby! Nobody understands that better than Barack Obama.

President Obama will return 5% of his salary in tribute to furloughed federal workers. He leads by example. #classact

— Zee ? (@misszanette) April 3, 2013

Such a stand up guy ‏RT @AP BREAKING: White House: Obama to return 5 percent of his salary in tribute to furloughed federal workers

— tmobile (@miss_tmo) April 3, 2013

He sure is!

Good move RT @SteveKopack: WASHINGTON (AP) — White House: Obama to return 5 percent of his salary in tribute to furloughed federal workers.

— Jillianwv (@jillianwv) April 3, 2013

No, not a good move. A great move. He really feels their pain, you see.