On Wednesday, President Obama himself pledged to return five percent of his $400,000 annual salary to the U.S. Treasury. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. He and wife Jill Biden reported a combined income of $379,035 in 2011, including the vice president's salary of $230,700. 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.
– 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.