Hoda Kotb recalls pay disparity in start of career: ‘Hardest thing for women’

Hoda Kotb is looking back at the hard times she has to gone through at the start of her career to advocate for a raise.

Kotb, explaining Vanna White struggles about how she got the Wheel of Fortune contract, the 59-year-old daytime broadcaster talked about pay disparity early in her career on Wednesday’s episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna.

“I think it's one of the hardest things for women to do,” she admitted of asking for a raise. “I know for years I was definitely making a fraction of what my male co-anchors were making. I actually never asked because I didn't want to be difficult.”

Taking back to the times when she was NBC correspondent from 1998 to 2007, Kotb claimed she might have been “the lowest paid correspondent,” adding that the pay partiality was “pretty clear at the time.”

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I can't pay my bills here,’” she continued. “I couldn't pay all my bills at the same time. So I was like, 'I'll pay this one, and then pay that one.’”

Her co-host Jenna Bush Hager emphasized on the necessity of teaching their daughters “to both be humble [and] to work hard” and to "not be afraid to ask for what they deserve.”

“Both things can be true. You can have grace and humility and still ask for what you deserve,” Kotb agreed. “Both of those things can happen at the same time.”