Presidential daughter Ivanka Trump said Wednesday she will take a formal White House position without pay but will be subjected to federal ethics rules.

“I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the president in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House Office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement issued by the White House.

Her official title will be assistant to the president; her husband, Jared Kushner, has the title of senior adviser, and also does not get paid.

In her statement, Ivanka Trump said that "throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House Counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role."

The White House put out a statement saying it is pleased that Ms. Trump has decided "to take this step in her unprecedented role as First Daughter and in support of the President."

It added: "Ivanka’s service as an unpaid employee furthers our commitment to ethics, transparency, and compliance and affords her increased opportunities to lead initiatives driving real policy benefits for the American public that would not have been available to her previously."

Ethics groups that had questioned Ivanka Trump's volunteer role, and how it related to government ethics rules, complimented her decision to become an employee.

Financial disclosures

"This means that, like other White House employees, Ms. Trump now will be required to file Form 278 financial disclosure reports with the Office of Government Ethics," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. He noted that she is also now "required to comply with the financial conflict of interest rules."

Ivanka Trump is not the first child of a president to work for his or her father.

John Quincy Adams served President John Adams as a diplomat (and later became president himself). Anna Roosevelt became an unpaid personal assistant to her presidential father, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. John Eisenhower worked as an assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower.

Over the years, more than a dozen children have worked for presidential fathers. Most have been low-level secretaries, or in some cases campaign operatives, said presidential historian Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting And Politics From George Washington to Barack Obama.

Ivanka Trump is unique in that she is a woman with high-level influence.

While Anna Roosevelt handled most ceremonial first lady-type duties for FDR, Kendall said that "it seems like Ivanka Trump will be someone with an input on policy."

In structuring her role, Ivanka Trump worked with Washington attorney Jamie Gorelick, who said her decision "reflects both her commitment to compliance with federal ethics standards and her openness to opposing point of view."

Ivanka Trump "will file the financial disclosure forms required of federal employees and be bound by the same ethics rules that she had planned to comply with voluntarily," Gorelick said. (US Today)