When the Obamas were based in Illinois, they quickly jumped ship from private law firms (where one is expected to work and produce earnings for the law office) to the public sector where “no show” six figure jobs exist for the politically anointed. During most of their “careers,” Michelle was the primary earner in their household. Her salaries were greater than her husband’s primarily because his work as a state legislator and an adjunct law professor were part-time positions. Barack even rejected an offer to teach law as a full-time faculty member at the University of Chicago. He was not interested in real employment, he wanted to manufacture a fake resume’ for politics.
Michelle’s important position with the City of Chicago allowed her time to complete crossword puzzles and read romance novels while at City Hall (Jesse Jackson was her sponsor who helped secure her job under Mayor Richard M. Daley). No one knows what she did at the University of Chicago Hospital. The hospital eliminated her position as soon as she moved to the White House.
Actually, we do have an idea what she did at the University of Chicago Medical Center (It isn't so far in the past that archeology was required!) from
this Washington Post article from August 22, 2008: Obama Camp Has Many Ties to Wife's Employer Here is an excerpt of the hagiographic article:
"...A few years ago, executives at the prestigious University of Chicago Medical Center were concerned that an increasing number of patients were arriving at their emergency room with what the executives considered to be non-urgent complaints. The visits were costly to the hospital, and many of the patients, coming from the surrounding South Side neighborhood, were poor and uninsured.
Michelle Obama, an executive at the medical center, launched an innovative program to steer the patients to existing neighborhood clinics to deal with their health needs. (In the medical community, this is called "patient dumping". But when someone with the last name of "Obama" does it, it is called an "innovative program"...)
That effort, in time, inspired a broader program the hospital now calls its Urban Health Initiative. To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Axelrod's firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign -- appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party "validators." They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.
One key recommendation from Axelrod's firm: "Respond quickly to opposition activity..."
You get the idea.