Old debate... 1. Neither party is against “Equal pay for equal work.” That is simply political rhetoric that many believe [and in that regard, I give the Democrats full credit for keeping the feeling of victimhood alive]. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was passed with all Republicans voting for it and the only nay votes were from Democrats. 2. Rather than “equal pay for equal work,” which is already the law, we should be discussing income “disparities,” which are real, and how to address them. Stressing STEM education for girls, for instance, is more powerful than passing a law that somebody is going to figure out a way around. 3. The current vote was not about equal work=equal pay, which is already illegal, but about “technical” wording that the GOP believes will solve none of the problems but will give employment to a lot of trial attorneys. In fact, several women GOP members who are very publicly for EP=EW voted “no” because of this. 4. There isn’t really a $.77>$1.00 pay difference between men and women. Even most progressive analysts will say it’s more like $.85 or so to the $1.00. It is polemically interesting that the Democratically-controlled White House of Barack Obama pays its women staff a lower average pay than their male staff. 5. One of the problems with the use of data for this polemic purpose is that it looks at apples and chickens. For instance, it does not factor in: education level; length of fulltime employment on the particular job; the fact that women still are over-represented in certain career fields that are lower paying; that women are more likely to take time off for child-bearing than men, thus disrupting their employment cycle…or that they are more likely to work part-time because of family. None of those are factored into the $.77 to the $1.00 political chant [nor is the differential between women themselves, with the same education and work history, but of different race or ethnicity]. For instance, while elementary and middle school teachers are overwhelmingly female, and are working off the same pay scale, the few males are often paid more because of length of tenure or the fact that they are over-represented as site leaders [with the requisite stipend]. 6. It is encouraging that, looking at the data by age groups, we can see that younger women entering the workforce are almost [within 1-5%] equal…and there is a 3% margin of error. 7. Democrats appear to believe that every problem requires a new law…while admitting that the last law they passed to fix the problem didn’t work as intended. That may not be the solution. 8. If you care to read the actual bill that was under consideration, it’s here: beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/84. You might see why some believe that one can be against this bill but for equal pay. 9. For those who are interested, here’s a non-partisan [and woman’s] POV on how this might be addressed: “A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter,” by economist Claudia Goldin.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 01:24:47 +0000
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