text: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) delivers remarks next to Vice President Joe Biden on common-sense measures to protect children from gun violence at the White House in Washington, March 28, 2013. 
   
   WASHINGTON | 
   
   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Unlike his boss and several other Cabinet members, Vice President Joe Biden will hold off on taking a pay reduction in solidarity with government workers hit by the sequestration budget cuts, his office said Friday. 
   
   Biden will take a pay cut if and when members of his own staff are affected. "The vice president is committed to sharing the burden of the sequester with his staff," a representative said. 
   
   President Barack Obama is to take a 5 percent pay cut in 2013, equivalent to $20,000, in a show of sympathy with federal employees. 
   
   Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will return the equivalent of 14 days' pay, and Secretary of State John Kerry will donate 5 percent of his salary to charity. 
   
   But Biden is holding off for the moment. His pay cut plan is similar to Attorney General Eric Holder's. The Department of Justice said Holder would take a cut equivalent to 14 days' pay - the largest amount any Justice Department staffer would have to take under sequestration - if the sequestration cuts reach his employees. 
   
   The $85 billion in sequestration budget cuts were designed to be so severe that Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill would be forced to come to an agreement to avoid them. 
   
   After they failed to agree, the cuts were set into motion on March 1 but the effect on some government agencies is still not clear and furloughs of federal workers will take time to kick in. 
   
   (Additional reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Eric Walsh) ||||| President Obama did it. So did Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Attorney General Eric Holder. Some members of Congress have offered to do it, too. 
   
   But, setting up an awkward dynamic in the White House, there’s one high-profile Cabinet member who has not yet publicly pledged to return some of his government salary: Vice President Joe Biden. You would think that someone who has hinted he wants to run for president in 2016 would have a photo-op handing over the money. 
   
   One possible explanation is Biden’s net worth, which is on the modest side compared to those of the president and other Cabinet members. The Center for Responsive Politics calculates the vice president’s net worth at between $39,000 and $800,000 while the president’s could range from nearly $3 million to just over $8 million. Kerry's net worth is estimated at anywhere between nearly $200 million and $300 million; Hagel's from $2 million to $11 million, and Lew's from $750,000 to to almost $2 million. 
   
   “It is a more difficult calculus for members who are not as wealthy,” said one long-time senior Democratic Senate aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could be candid. 
   
   Of course, being a millionaire probably makes it a little easier to pledge to return a percentage of your salary to the federal government to stand in solidarity with federal employees who’ve taken pay cuts because of budget cuts due to sequestration. 
   
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   But because Obama will give $20,000 of his $400,000 salary back to the Treasury to share the pain of $85 billion in budget cuts that went into effect last month, the pressure on Biden to do the same is higher. 
   
   “Ultimately here, PR rules the day,” said the long-time aide. “It's a way they can illustrate the common touch.” 
   
   The vice president's office would not say if he planned to return some of his salary, but did suggest he might. 
   
   "The vice president is committed to sharing the burden of the sequester with his staff," said a spokeswoman for Biden. 
   
   Later, the vice president's office added that it's not clear whether his office will face cuts due to sequestration, and if they do he would consider returning part of his salary. 
   
   Far from super-wealthy, Biden is not the only Cabinet member who hasn’t publicly said he’d give back part of his salary. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced no plans to give back part of her pay, though her estimated net worth is as high as $5 million, The New York Times reported. 
   
   Still, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano whose net worth is in line with Biden’s at $93,000 to $700,000, said she’d give back 5 percent, according to The Times. 
   
   The administration is navigating rocky political waters with sequestration. Before the cuts took effect, Obama argued that such a “meat-clever approach” would deliver a serious blow to the economy. But since the cuts went into effect the economy has not — yet, anyway — stumbled as badly as the president suggested. Now, Obama and the Cabinet are very publicly returning part of their salaries, a move that simultaneously suggests solidarity but also reminds voters, many of whom can’t afford to spare a dime, that their political leaders have tens of thousands to spare. 
   
   “If you’re a member of Congress, surely the notion of lead by example should not just be a slogan,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia, according to The Times. 
   
   Biden, who earns $230,700 annually as vice president, has already made some public gestures because of the cuts. In February, he said he would again take Amtrak back to Delaware, just he did for three-plus decades while he was in the Senate. 
   
   “Look, guys, I’ve got to take the train now,” Biden said at the time, according to the News Journal. “It’s cheaper than flying.” ||||| Updated 6:30 p.m. ET 
   
   
   
   Vice President Joe Biden, unlike some of his colleagues in the administration, is currently not planning to donate a portion of his salary to charity or pay back the Treasury as a nod to the pinch of the sequester budget cuts - but he would reconsider if members of his staff eventually face furloughs, his office said Friday. 
   
   "The vice president is committed to sharing the burden of the sequester with his staff," Biden's office said in a statement. 
   
   On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel apparently kicked off a trend when he announced that he would return a portion of his salary for each day that Defense Department employees are furloughed. On Wednesday, President Obama himself pledged to return five percent of his $400,000 annual salary to the U.S. Treasury. And on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry staged his own demonstration of solidarity, pledging to donate five percent of his salary to treasury. Other cabinet secretaries, including Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, and others, followed suit with similar promises. 
   
   While most Cabinet members earn around $200,000 per year, many of the current department heads were already independently wealthy when they took the job - Kerry's net worth, for example, is estimated to exceed $200 million. 
   
   Not so, Joe Biden - he was among the least wealthy members of the Senate when he represented Delaware in the upper chamber, and not much has changed in his personal financial outlook since assuming the vice presidency. He and wife Jill Biden reported a combined income of $379,035 in 2011, including the vice president's salary of $230,700. Biden's average net worth was around $423,000 in 2011, according to a calculation by the Center for Responsive Politics. 
   
   Editor's note: An earlier version of this story reported that Biden had declined to take a pay cut. Biden has not declined, his office says; he is currently holding off on a salary-related decision as he and his office assess the potential furlough situation. 
   
  
target: – Sequester politics have taken a weird turn. Joe Biden is now the subject of a spate of negative-sounding headlines because he isn't returning part of his salary in solidarity with federal workers about to be furloughed. (See this headline at CBS News or this one at Reuters.) President Obama has said he will do so—though critics are calling him a cheapskate—as have others, including Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, Janet Napolitano, and Jack Lew. Biden, though, is conspicuously absent. The VP's office says he might change his mind if members of his own staff lose pay, reports Politico. "The vice president is committed to sharing the burden of the sequester with his staff," says the statement. Why the reluctance, especially for a potential 2016 candidate? One possible reason is that Biden is a man of relatively modest means, with a net worth figured to be under $1 million, notes the National Journal. “It is a more difficult calculus for members who are not as wealthy,” says a senior Democratic Senate aide.