ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Paula Thornton Greear, the “she/her/hers” President & CEO of Planned Parenthood of Michigan, may talk a lot about equity, justice, and community healthcare – but her $181,818 salary says she’s also doing just fine in the personal equity department.
According to the 2025 CEO Compensation Report from the American Life League, Greear actually clocks in on the lower end of the national Planned Parenthood CEO pay scale. But before you break out the violin, consider this: she still earns well above the average nonprofit CEO salary, which the website Payscale says hovers around $117,000. In fact, the average affiliate CEO within Planned Parenthood pulls in around $350,000. Some, like Sue Dunlap of Los Angeles, rake in as much as $875,942 a year, making Planned Parenthood CEO gigs look more like Wall Street than Women’s Health.
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American Life League national director Katie Brown Xavios says in a press release about the high compensation, “There is a vicious cycle going on right under our noses. Hundreds of millions of our tax dollars are forked over to the oligarchs at Planned Parenthood, and in turn, they kill nearly half a million preborn Americans each year. And the reward? A government-funded nonprofit CEO making nearly $1 million a year. That should enrage Americans. At this time in America, when it is clear that there has been an extremely inappropriate misuse of funds by our government and by other nongovernmental organizations, Planned Parenthood reeks of guilt.”
“Healthcare justice” – for those at the top?
Michigan’s Greear, who took over the CEO position at Planned Parenthood of Michigan in 2022, has positioned herself as a progressive voice in Michigan politics. She regularly pens op-eds, like her piece in Michigan Advance, calling for abortion access “beyond the ballot” and warning that critiques of Kamala Harris when she ran to be president were rooted in racism and sexism.
As Greear touted a vision of “care” for all, Planned Parenthood of Michigan was busy helping to facilitate the over 30,000 abortions in the state in 2023, which is the last year that abortion data will be available from the state. The number of abortions is projected to increase in 2024 thanks to looser restrictions post-Prop 3.
Michigan News Source reached out to Greear to ask about her duties and responsibilities – and to understand why her salary is so high – but she did not respond to our request for comment.
National money machine.
Planned Parenthood as a whole brought in $2.5 billion in revenue last fiscal year. Nearly $700 million came from taxpayers, yet its CEO class lives more like corporate elites than community servants. President Alexis McGill Johnson, who works at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s headquarters in New York made over $900,000, and their top executives earned between $400K– $600K.
Despite a sizable budget, a significant portion of Planned Parenthood’s spending continues to go toward executive compensation and marketing efforts, while public messaging focuses on begging for money so that women can have access to what they label as “healthcare.”
