When Michelle Robinson graduated law school, she first worked with Mayor Richard Daley at Chicago city hall as an assistant planning commissioner. That's also when she married Barack Obama. From here, their professional lives progressed up the civic ladder. They certainly had it tough, working in various pressure-packed local government positions. And their struggle would continue.

After a while at city hall, then-state senator Barack recommended to Mayor Daley that Michelle head up the new Chicago Office of Public Allies, another esteemed position, where she provided "leadership group training" for young adults. Previously, Barack had been a former board member of this most vital of community services. After all, one shudders to think of what fate may have befallen the city back then without sufficient leadership group training services.

Ah, but true to the fruits of their labor, the earnest work of the young couple began to pay off. Michelle Obama's next job was at the University of Chicago. First, she worked as the "associate" dean of student services. But despite the pressure, she performed admirably, providing a panoply of student services that deeply affected the lives of all that she touched. After leaving that, she nobly accepted the call to duty, and went off to work for the University of Chicago Hospitals, scraping by at an annual salary of $122,000. 

Michael Riordan, the university's former CEO, hired Michelle, a proven performer under stress, to a newly-created position where she collaborated with churches and community groups. Her job description called for performing community outreach services for the University's medical center. This indeed required special outreaching skills.

Michelle proved to be a real trailblazer. She recruited volunteers, increased staff "diversity", and worked with clinics and physicians to provide primary care to low-income patients who would otherwise use the emergency room. She created a whole new department of community outreach services for the facility. She proudly had determined that she was going to be the best, and she performed the job for all it was worth.

She was rewarded with another new position, vice-president of community affairs. Basically this could be interpreted as an emergency room bouncer, where she would "steer" patients who don't have private insurance, primarily poor people, to other health care facilities.

Michelle would flourish magnificently in her newly created job, directing indigent people away from the "not-for-profit" hospital, and carry out a strategy of maximizing income for the med center. At 5' 11", Michelle Obama was no shrinking violet. She quickly developed her expertise at "patient re-location", and was rewarded by the hospital for her valiant efforts.

In March 2005, Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs, and had her annual salary tripled from $121,910 to $316,962. But by the most remote of coincidences, this was just months after her husband had won a U.S. Senate seat in 2004.  But after all, it had been quite the struggle for the towering, dedicated professional, getting by on only $122,000; and now $317,000 was a lot more like it.

Then hubby Barack really began to come through. In his steadfast duty to God and country, one of his first accomplishments in the US Senate was a government grant...out of the 8 million dollar list of new earmarks he requested, $1 million would go for the construction of a new hospital pavilion at the University Of Chicago . The request was made in 2006. The hospital had definitely been in dire need of a pavilion, and may have been in danger of closing down without it. Barack had again managed to perform in the clutch for his spouse and her employer. 

But as the wife of a newly-sworn-in U.S. Senator, Michelle's life began to come under scrutiny. The Chicago Tribune newspaper began to get nosy: they had some nerve to raise doubts about the amount and timing of Michelle's raise. But how dare they question the veracity of the Obamas, who had given up so much of their young lives for the sake of the community?  Now defenders began to rush to their side.

Hospitals spokesman John Easton told the Tribune that "Michelle Obama's salary was in line with those of the 16 other vice presidents at the not-for-profit medical center". Michael Riordan, who hired Michelle, said "her commitment to both family and community was beyond reproach", and "all her work was front and center". He told the newspaper that the promotion and salary increase had nothing to do with Obama's husband becoming a U.S. senator. "She was hired before Barack was Barack," said CEO Riordan.

The Obama's were rightfully outraged: After all, what a silly notion it was to think that right after her husband was elected Senator, she had her salary tripled. The very indignity of it all! And the Obamas anger at the Tribune was well justified when no other media outlet picked up the story. And surely, even without such handsome compensation, Michelle would probably have been grateful to work at her hospital bouncer job on a volunteer basis, for the sheer satisfaction of serving the community, especially now that her husband was in the public eye as a United States Senator. Yessir...once you have community service in your blood, there's no turning back.

But the rumblings continued. Byron York, from the National Review, described the situation in rather blunt terms; (quote) "Isn’t Michelle Obama’s raise sort of a kickback?" (unquote) . And to further complicate the situation, in late 2006, a story broke about a poor Hispanic man, who had been turned away from the hospital's emergency room, had literally died on the street shortly thereafter (sorry dude-- no insurance). Michelle's reputation took a direct hit. However, knowing it was most certainly no fault of her own, she managed to weather the storm well: She took a leave of absence in early 2007 to go out on the presidential campaign trail for her husband. 


Yes, it was about time she had a break from all the stress...she could now rest on her laurels. Her stellar community outreaching performance for the University of Chicago Hospitals was indeed vital work, right up there with open heart surgery. 

Her unselfish accomplishments stood out. While a vice-president at the hospital, she had founded the "Urban Health Initiative", a program which would find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment. A local marketing firm, A S K Public Strategies, was employed by the hospital to sell the new program to the community as a better alternative for poor patients.  

But here we go again: there were more goodies for the Obamas involved in the ASK hiring. By another remarkable coincidence, Obama's current top political strategist, David Axelrod, was co-owner of the firm. Hospital officials defended both the program, and the hiring of Axelrod, because "people without insurance hinder our ability to focus on our more critically ill patients in need of specialized care, such as cancer treatment and organ transplants".  Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser, who chairs the medical center's board, backed the Axelrod firm's hiring, hospital officials said.