The Obama Presidential Center is set to open in a few months, and the rollout has a mix of high-dollar spending, bold architectural choices, and a volunteer pitch that’s raising eyebrows across the city.
We’re about two and a half months away from the Obama Presidential Center opening in Chicago, and the project has already drawn plenty of attention for its look and price. The design reads like progressive brutalist architecture and, to critics, like an expensive monument that hardly fits the surrounding neighborhoods.
Despite the nearly billion-dollar build and fanfare, the Foundation is recruiting unpaid volunteers to staff parts of the campus while CEO Valerie Jarrett reportedly earned almost three-quarters of a million dollars in 2024. That contrast between unpaid ambassadors and top-level pay has become the center of the debate.
The Obama Foundation is looking for 100 unpaid volunteers to work alongside the former president’s highly paid cronies at the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Chicago when it opens in June.
Officials are pitching the no-paycheck gigs as rooted in former President Barack Obama’s legacy of civic engagement.
The recruitment campaign comes after Fox News Digital reported that the organization’s CEO, former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, was paid $740,000 in 2024.
Foundation officials told Fox News Digital the volunteers will complement about 300 full- and part-time employees at the long-delayed center, which the organization is promoting as a $3.1 billion economic catalyst for the Windy City’s South Side.
The new program will have 75 to 100 volunteers, known as “ambassadors,” greet and direct visitors around the campus and share information about exhibits at the 22-story museum tower, athletic center and Chicago Public Library branch, among other amenities.
Call it optimism or spin, but labeling a costly private project an “economic catalyst” for a city struggling with crime and budget gaps feels ambitious at best. Families thinking of visiting a major urban museum might not be reassured when surrounding neighborhoods are still dealing with violence and disorder.
There’s another practical angle: Chicago’s mayor has pitched a proposed head tax that would charge businesses $21 per employee per month to help close a massive shortfall. That would amount to $75,600 a year for 300 paid workers at the center, if the Foundation is treated like a local employer.
Always. What happened to paying people a living wage, Barack? Bringing in unpaid volunteers while executives take big salaries doesn’t play well with working families who actually count every paycheck.
Leftists build ugly things because that’s how they view the world, and then they celebrate those structures as civic progress. The building’s stark design and the price tag feed into a narrative that the people in charge are out of touch with the neighborhoods they claim to uplift.
They’re the same picture. They never, ever change — the spending, the optics, the doublespeak about civic engagement. That consistency helps critics make a simple argument about priorities.
This kind of setup is believable to anyone who watches how policy and staffing choices get made: big salaries at the top, volunteer roles at the bottom, and a public relations line about legacy and community. When pay becomes optional for frontline roles, it’s a safe bet to assume hiring strategies and labor positions will follow whatever minimizes costs.
And when they need to staff things on a budget, political preferences often push to expand the labor pool in ways that lower costs for employers. Supposedly. As always, it’s (D)ifferent when they do it, however. Which is why many observers expect the Obama Foundation won’t be the one shouldering the full city tax tab if that proposal moves forward.
