Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards made more than $1 million during her last year running the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Planned Parenthood’s most recent IRS Form 990, which is posted on its website, reports Richards’ salary was $1,033,274 for the fiscal year running from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.
Vice President Dawn Laguens, who left not long after Richards did, made $891,092 that same year, according to the form, a requirement of tax-exempt non-profit organizations. In total, the 14 top level employees of Planned Parenthood made salaries that combine to equal about $6.2 million, the form indicates.
That same year, Planned Parenthood reported a record $1.66 billion in revenue in its annual report while providing fewer actual health care services and more abortions. Planned Parenthood identifies as a non-profit organization.
Richards resigned in 2018 after 12 years at the abortion group. She now runs her own political advocacy group.
In her time at Planned Parenthood, her salary more than doubled, while patient numbers and services like cancer screenings and well-women exams dropped. In 2016-2017, Richards’ salary was $957,952. All of this comes from Planned Parenthood’s own annual reports and tax filings, which are public.
Lately, Planned Parenthood has been the cause du jour of celebrities, media personalities and Democratic politicians. Thanks to their endorsements, the abortion group bragged of receiving a record number of donations in 2016.
But it appears that those donations may not have gone to patient care (numerous state health inspection reports indicate otherwise) or even better salaries and benefits for lower-level employees. They appear to have gone into the already rich leaders’ salaries, posh Manhattan offices, celebrity guests and first-class traveling.
All of this occurred while Richards claimed that they were helping low-income women and minorities.
Another big hypocrisy under Richards is the issue of maternity care.
While she and her fellow leaders reaped in massive salaries, most Planned Parenthood employees did not even get paid maternity leave, a New York Times investigation revealed earlier this year. The report also found evidence that the abortion group was mistreating and discriminating against its pregnant employees.
One former employee Ta’Lisa Hairston alleged the abortion group did not let her take breaks during her pregnancy, which a nurse recommended because of her high blood pressure, The New York Times reported.
Another former hiring manager in California said supervisors discriminated against pregnant job candidates, and pregnant employees at Planned Parenthood did not get promoted.
While this was occurring, Richards was helping Hillary Clinton campaign for paid maternity leave. She even slammed then-candidate Donald Trump for not doing more.
Also at that time, Planned Parenthood began fighting its own employees’ attempts to unionize as they called for better wages and working conditions.
And those are just some of the many problems under Richards’ leadership. All this happened while Planned Parenthood received about half a billion tax dollars every year from the United States.
As Ryan Bomberger at The Radiance Foundation commented in 2017:
I mean, what corporation loses 670,540 clients in less than 10 years, slashes its major services (except one) up to 59%, increases its president’s salary by a whopping 265% (from $360,902 in 2006 to $957,952) and gets praised by the news media? Planned Parenthood.
There are no details yet about the salary of Leana Wen, who replaced Richards as CEO earlier this year.
