Chelsea Clinton Paid $600K Salary By NBC News [Report]

Chelsea Clinton took home $600,000 in annual pay for her NBC News gig.

Given this payday, it’s unlikely Chelsea would describe herself as “dead broke,” a term that her mom Hillary Clinton, a possible 2016 presidential candidate for the Democrats, used to describe the family’s financial status after leaving the White House.

The $600,000 entry level salary for the journalism newcomer who wasn’t exactly working under deadline pressure was revealed by inside sources to Politico, although it has not been confirmed by either NBC News or the former first daughter’s spokesperson.

Across the spectrum, most observers were underwhelmed by Chelsea Clinton’s on-air presentation skills; according to BuzzFeed, one network executive even anticipated that Clinton, who also received “unprecedented” special treatment from NBC, would be “terrible” on television.

She is now on a month-to-month contract, Politico reported today:

“Chelsea Clinton earned an annual salary of $600,000 at NBC News before switching to a month-to-month contract earlier this year… Clinton, who joined NBC News as a special correspondent in November 2011, was up for renewal or nonrenewal this year. Instead, the sources said, the network decided to keep her on the payroll on a month-to-month basis so the two parties could sever ties if Clinton’s mother, Hillary Clinton, runs for president… As special correspondent, Clinton worked on service-related feature assignments for NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams until the show’s cancellation in June 2013. Clinton has since worked on packages for NBC Nightly News… Clinton is due to deliver her first child in the fall, and it’s unclear whether she will resume work with NBC after that…”

According to Business Insider, “Based on these figures, Clinton has earned about $26,724 for each minute she subsequently appeared on air.”

Chelsea Clinton’s hefty yearly paycheck, which also raised implications of possible influence peddling and crony capitalism, is reportedly much higher than what Jill Abramson earned as the prestigious executive editor of The New York Times.

Clinton, 34, previously worked at a hedge fund run by a one-percenter friend of Bill Clinton. She is also a principal at the Clinton Foundation, which does charitable work around the world, but is also an organization that allegedly provides a cushy and soft landing for former Clinton political operatives.

Is income inequality in play? Well, according to the Washington Post, the revelation about Chelsea Clinton’s salary for filming “feel good stories” here and there, if accurate, is not sitting well with other NBC staffers: “If that name hadn’t been connected to American royalty, she could have expected to rake in between $100,000 and $200,000 as a first-year network correspondent, a job that people from less-high-profile families snare only through years and years of tireless work covering the news. That salary range is confirmed by several people familiar with the compensation levels at major network news outlets. ‘I’m sure that that salary figure is going to make other NBC correspondents’ heads spin right off their shoulders,’ says one of those sources.”

Meantime, Hillary Clinton, a multimillionaire, is still getting some satirical feedback for the whole dead broke thing that she discussed in a Diane Sawyer interview as part of the Hard Choices book tour:

Do you think NBC News got its money’s worth by reportedly paying Chelsea Clinton $600,000 per year?

[Image via Rena Schild / Shutterstock.com]