49 Comments

1. ic:

The employer must be stupid. He would rather pay a higher price to a man to do a job that a woman can do for less. If he were rational, he would have hired all women in his work force, and pocket the man-woman wage differentials.

Feb 2, 2009 - 11:39 pm 2. ashok:

Thank you so much for bringing into question the raw number, which I was hit with over the head by every professor I had in undergrad.

There are actually issues regarding gender where dishonesty is even more prevalent. City Journal reported rather nicely a while back on what’s happening on campus.

Feb 2, 2009 - 11:40 pm 3. Bernard Chapin:

Thank you for reporting this valuable information.

Feb 3, 2009 - 12:51 am 4. Paul:

What got me was in the second sentence, “overturns a U.S. Supreme Court decision”. You can do that?

Can you imagine the uproar if Bush had signed a bill from Republicans into law that overturned McCain/Fiengold.

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:53 am 5. Jessica:

Paul:

A Supreme Court decision isn’t a Constitutional Amendment. Courts make decisions based on the laws available to them, and if Congress doesn’t like the way the courts interpret a law, they can change them. Further, in some opinions courts will urge the legislature to re-examine the laws they have made. Sometimes they’ll say things like, “We don’t like the law, but we aren’t going to change it here and instead will apply it as written. The legislature should re-evaulate the law and change it.” Doing that may lead to an “unfair” outcome for the case, but it highlights the problems of the law as it’s applied for the legislature.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:35 am 6. The Man On The Street:

So does that mean that where some women in major metro cities such as LA and NY are actually making MORE than men, men can now file charges?

Hardly….

TMOTS

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:37 am 7. Nicole:

Paul:

In this instance, The Supreme Court interpreted a law written by Congress not the Constitution. Thus, Congress can simply rewrite the law. This is appropriate, even if I disagree with the outcome. I do agree that if a Republican Congress & Bush had done this the media would have presented the situation differently. Somehow, even if Bush’s actions were entirely legal and in line with previous actions of past presidents the media would spin it to make Bush look bad. One of the most egregious examples is the firing of lawyers at the justice department. Clinton went in and fired all political appointments wholesale. Bush allowed them to keep their jobs unless they proved unwilling to implement his agenda. It is the prerogative of the President to decide the agenda of the Justice Department, which is totally negated if attorneys can ignore his directives. But I seriously digress.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:39 am 8. Sara for America:

Why don’t you call someone and ask why it was taken down? Let’s hear the explanation.

Great article.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:58 am 9. Joe Bison:

These studies are usually bogus. When work
experience and part-time status are factored
there is little difference. Another factor,
often overlooked, is hours put in the same
job. Who stays late, who works overtime,
who takes work home, who comes in on the
weekend, who come is when the kids or parents
are sick?

The real goal is to have bureaucrats decide
wage equity based on work of equal value.
This equal value is determined by government
bureaucrats. The justification is that certain
jobs are dominated by certain genders.

This kills private sector jobs and bloats
payrolls within government. It is better
when you spread the wealth is it not? Where
did I hear that?

The other shoe to drop will be pay equity “gaps”
between visible minorities and whites. Also
there will be “studies” on gaps between foreign
born and US born workers.

The goal will be to make the Republicans out
to be the blue meanies while the free spending
Democrats the cool good guys out for social
justice.

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:16 am 10. Noe Bodie:

OK, where’s the original report? It was taken down, but are you saying that you read the report but didn’t save it?

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:30 am 11. davod:

Mr. Eastman’s article on the Chamber of Commerce web site contains a link to a saved copy – Gender Wage Gap

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:54 am 12. Anton:

What they should be looking at is the rate of pay, not gross pay. This would give a direct comparison and is not impacted by total number of hours worked, days off, full/part time staus etc. If all you do is compare W-2s you are creating differences where they may not exist.

Also you can control for factors such as time-in-grade, education, longevity of service, by ensuring that the employees that are being compared are really an apples-apples situation.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:00 am 13. Joseph:

Why let a little thing like facts get in the way of a preconceived social agenda?

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:02 am 14. Larry J:

If the facts disagree with the theory, they must disappear.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:10 am 15. jvon:

My company has never hired an employee. If I need extra hands on a project, I hire subcontractors for the term of the project.

Idiocy like this is the reason. And people wonder why we are losing jobs to companies overseas?

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:13 am 16. Anneke:

“For example, the data did not permit an examination of total compensation, which would examine health insurance and other benefits, and instead focused solely on wages paid.”

I work for a major university. A number of my female colleagues have said that they choose to work here not because of the pay–they could earn more in the private sector–but because of the generous benefits (health, dental, vision, HSA, dependent care) plus the number of paid holidays and flexible hours that make childcare and family issues easier to deal with.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:16 am 17. mc6809e:

I see in this administration politics trumps science, otherwise why remove the study from the government site?

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:03 am 18. Pierce Harlan:

Take former Clinton Labor Secretary and Obama advisor Robert Reich, for example. (Reich is coming under heavy criticism for writing that the next economic stimulus should not all go to white male construction workers. Mr. Reich has superlative credentials in the liberal — and femininist — communities.) What does this man who was actually secretary of labor and who knows what he’s talking about think is the cause of the gender wage gap? Well, he doesn’t buy into the world view that the 23 cent per dollar gender wage gap is due to discrimination. In an interview last year with the New York Times, Reich said: “About 50 percent of the differential has to do with different career choices made by women and men. Twenty-five percent involves greater time women spend on care-taking of children and elderly relatives. The other 25 percent is due to bias and prejudice in the labor market.” Link: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/robert-reich-answers-your-labor-questions/
Wow! Funny, you don’t hear that quote repeated very often. Discrimination, according to this liberal who actually knows what he’s talking about, accounts for less than six percent of the gender wage gap. Anyway, ask your average male employer if he would hire a man for doing exactly the same job that he could get a similarly qualified woman to do for 23 percent less. Even a chauvinist wouldn’t have to think about that one. In point of fact, if employers could always hire a similarly qualified woman to do exactly the same job a man does at a 23 percent discount, every man in America would be unemployed.

Feb 3, 2009 - 12:30 pm 19. Michael:

Yeah for continued behind the scenes feminist war against men propaganda. Do people seriously not even try to apply the wage gap to their personnel experiences? I have never as a, military veteren, firefighter, waiter, lab tech been in a job where discrimination laws did not apply and make it all but impossible to pay differently based on gender. If the gap is in business on the high end, this in part due to CHOICES of the mommy track as employers attempt to promote women, which are often rejected. What, half of businesses are owned by women, so spread the blame if one refuses to use logic. Besides, if the “gap” does exist then it must be about twice this figure since it doesn’t exist in the average job.

BTW, this is capitalism = profit, who is profitting from a wage gap? not the business owners, but N.O.W. and other feminist organizations are, Interesting? or just continue the blame game?

Feb 3, 2009 - 12:31 pm 20. Charlie (Colorado):

Sounds like it cries out for an FOIA request, which, this being the Most Transparent Administration Every™ should be answered promptly with the report.

Feb 3, 2009 - 12:53 pm 21. Peg C.:

As we shed thousands if not tens of thousands of jobs during this recession, somehow I suspect the supposed “gender wage gap” concerns will fall by the wayside as trivial fluff we cannot afford. Soon we’ll be lucky to have jobs at all. I’m in IT and I think we’re at the beginning of a tsunami of job losses. The women I work with have jobs for the benefits, period. Not one works an hour of (unpaid) OT that she doesn’t scream about it. With some exceptions, this is not as true of the men I work with. When OT is paid, men are much more eager than women to work it. (In my corp., regular employees are exempt from OT pay; contractors are not.) There’s a gender gap, all right, and pay has virtually nothing to do with it. I’m not saying women are lazy; I’m saying our priorities are totally different. If pay reflects that, that’s fair.

Feb 3, 2009 - 1:04 pm 22. Peg C.:

Correction: I meant thousands if not tens of thousands of job losses PER MONTH during this recession.

Also, maternity leave is now a standard 3 months and every new mother is taking it. New dads don’t take more than a few weeks if that. Women taking this time takes a toll on productivity and gross pay. It’s extremely beneficial for mother and baby, but it’s a choice women make consciously and it impacts that supposed gap.

Feb 3, 2009 - 1:07 pm 23. LouAnn:

I recall working harder and getting paid less than a male counterpart (I did overtime on the job and researched in my personal time at home, brought in supplementary materials, which I paid for, and really put my heart into my work). I asked for a raise after highlighting what all I did, and, my boss (a female) turned me down. So I left for a better-paying job.

Years later I worked for another female boss, who said she didn’t like to hire men, as she felt they didn’t identify with the female clients.

Lesson: It’s an unfair world, and if you don’t like the situation you’re in, leave for greener pastures.

Feb 3, 2009 - 1:38 pm 24. LouAnn:

Peg C: I’m in finance, not IT. The women I work with are total slaves to their jobs (the 80-hour weeks, no weekends off, you go in when you have bronchitis, and don’t even think about vacation kind of overtime). And nobody screams. Maybe it’s an IT thing. Or maybe their husbands are giving them nightmarish grief at home when they aren’t there to do the cooking, cleaning, laundry (now there you’ll find a real gender gap). Just ask your female coworkers sometime if they have a “second full-time job” waiting at home — well, unless you’d really rather not open yourself to that level of “oversharing.”

Feb 3, 2009 - 1:47 pm 25. Fred:

This pay gap issue has been debunked so many times already I don’t see why one more report will make any difference. The problem of course is that too many women want to believe there is a gender wage gap. It gives them comfort, makes them feel like they are part of a larger victim group, and it can be used to explain away many personal failures. It’s easier for these women to believe in the pay gap than to consider reality. And of course because these women vote, politician’s need to pander to them. I don’t see the truth of this issue being discussed by either party. It’s an example of what people really voted for in the last election: political correctness.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:13 pm 26. Marc Malone:

#23 LouAnn – My experience is that women rarely will walk away from a job if they don’t get the raise they want. Men will. Men often identify their self-worth by their pay. It’s more important to them. (I’m not saying it’s right.) I’ll bet that woman was surprised when you quit, as she probably expected you to bend over and take it like all the other women.

I always got paid more than others. I was more productive, but I still had to DEMAND the pay increase, and I often did it when it wasn’t review time. I always got the raise. Always. Because they knew I actually would walk. Knew it.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:08 pm 27. Marie Claude:

It’s quite the same across the pond.

A woman is competitive and “free” to leave a job if she thinks she is underpaid, until she get married and has children. Then she has to calculate the advantages and inconvenients to leave a boss that doesn’t consider her at her right value. She often and mostly opts to stay because of her marital life, that she doesn’t want to harm, (well not so soon, later, it’s too late, the train has gone !!!)

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:27 pm 28. Ex canuck in USA:

Beware a marvelous Canadian construct called “equal pay for work of equal value” in which one tries to equate, for example, the work of the secretary / receptionist at the front desk of the small firm with the big brawny guy in shipping who helps load and unload the delivery semis.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:21 pm 29. Cybergeezer:

After all this publicity, I’m hiring only men; I’ll tell them they’re replacing some woman I fired, so they’ll have to start off at a wage a little lower than the women. They can work their way up from there.
(Sure glad my business isn’t labor intensive.)

Feb 3, 2009 - 6:49 pm 30. juliet:

There was a book out a few years ago saying the same thing. I remember hearing the author talk; he asked everyone to stand up & he asked people to sit as the answer no to questions as “have you ever worked a 70hr wk? have you everworked outside? ” The standing auidence was about 50/50 but as the question contioned only men was left standing with 1 female. That was he posit men & women work differtly if the women works the exact same job as a male with all the dangers the she should get paid the same. But if she ( that includes me] wants time off are flexable schudele than I should not be paid the same as a man or woman who work more hours or a more difcult job

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:00 pm 31. Will of Ohio:

For my four sisters, I’m glad they now have greater protections, because I know that sexism is alive & well.

However, I’ve seen several studies that showed that Women were less likely to ask for or demand a pay raise. They also showed that women were more likely to accept a 3% annual merit increase instead of demanding a higher percentage.. as many men will.

Makes me wonder how much of “the glass ceiling” is due to sexism and how much is due to the lack of aggressive negotiations.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:29 pm 32. Chuck:

The CONSAD report is available on their own website, the summary, and all 90+ pages. Ask the Labor Department why it’s not on their site any more.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:12 pm 33. John Galt:

I can guarantee that the study quoted by the Congress person did not consider jobs such as modeling where women make a ton more than men do.

Nor did it consider prostitution where female prostitutions make a lot more per client on the average than male prostitutes.

Nor did it factor in height. A number of credible studies have been done that show that taller people make more money than shorter people. If you are going to compare mens and womens wages for s specific job you have to factor in height. I am sure that the pay gap is a lot less between men and women of equal height then it is even for taller women who probably make more than shorter men do.

There are a lot more factors not included in the study that I could mention along with the missing ones mentioned by the author of this article.

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:50 pm 34. Joe:

How’s this study going:
Re: Management Employees that are terminated: On the “Don’t file a discrimination lawsuit against us” payoff difference for all women vs. all men. I’ll bet the girls are getting more than the boys…. With white males getting THE LEAST of this Pie !

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:50 pm 35. John Galt:

Disregarding the fact that C. Parker can play better than some NBA players. (LOL) maybe the WNBA should have the same wage scale as the NBA?

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:53 pm 36. Ed in AZ:

WNBA vs NBA players salary: Could the suit for higher WNBA salaries get the networks to give larger contracts and the fans to attend more games and pay higher ticket prices?

Feb 4, 2009 - 12:08 am 37. Marc Malone:

#25 fred – I disagree. I don’t think most, or even many, women are demanding this anymore. I think this is demagoguery. Keeps the women working for the Dem party to seem like they’re being served. They’re not.

This will backfire. Suddenly, they’ll lose their precious benefits. They’ll have to work long hours like all the guys. They’ll be let go for too much time off for family. They’ll lose all their flexibility. More employers will move to independent contractors. No more job security. Unintended consequences.

Feb 4, 2009 - 2:00 am 38. Nurse in Pa:

Men posses 50% to 75% greater upper body strength than women do. There are obvious biological differences between men and women. Liberal feminists are implementing another hatchet-job social re-engineering scheme.

Feb 4, 2009 - 4:08 am 39. LouAnn:

From my experience, it really boils down to assertiveness: ask (with leverage) and you will receive. There are so many books on the topic of negotiating for higher pay, etc. It’s up to each professional to acquire the skills — if they aren’t absorbed/taught in childhood. Why would a boss give a promotion or a pay increase if the employee is willing to do more work for less? Things like that only happen in a rocking economy when employees are being siphoned off by competitors.

I am surprised by the claims that women don’t do hard overtime. That’s just not my experience. Growing up in the ’70s my mom had a job plus overtime plus freelance work on the side. My sister did back-to-back shifts in her profession. Female friends of mine are slaves to their jobs — one even called herself a “work whore.” She didn’t take any time off after having her baby, and in fact, she became very ill and had to quarantine herself from her 2-month old, but she still came in to work.

I know women who’ve canceled vacations, missed funerals of close relatives (not that that’s uncommon) and whose spouses and boyfriends give them ultimatums. For the single women, their personal lives are a mess. Their fridges are empty — no time to grocery shop. No time to take out the trash. Why do they do it? The money’s good. And they keep telling themselves that it won’t always be this way. Someday it will be more manageable. I don’t know where these other “lazy” women are — I’m just not seeing it in my profession.

Feb 4, 2009 - 7:01 am 40. LouAnn:

I’ll add that I have gone down the ladder to reclaim some sanity in my work hours. The thinking was that if I took a lesser-paying job, then I could give myself “permission” to rein in the crazy hours. It didn’t turn out to be the case. At least now I can laugh about it. Anyway, that was a personal choice to try to get off the treadmill without face-planting, but it didn’t work. I would tackle the problem differently now — lesson learned.

There are websites where employees can covertly share details of compensation. It’s important that men and women educate themselves on what’s fair pay and how to assess what their time is worth. And then go to the boss, not as an adversary. He/she just might be on your side. And if the economic timing is bad, you can always circle back. By that time, your boss might have made the case/secured the funds for that increase. At least get the dialogue started. And keep your eyes open for other prospects, and weigh the options.

I look at it this way. Do you want to spend your time suing someone for some perceived slight — that might be provable nonsense — or do you want to get in the driver’s seat and manage your career better?

Feb 4, 2009 - 7:13 am 41. steven deluca:

Warren Farrell’s book “Why Men Earn More” is written by a man who once wore the “59 cents” button as the only man on the board of the National Organization for Women. Warren did what almost all of us do when several women tell us the same thing “He assumed they were speaking from experience and were speaking the truth” so he just put the button on and fought for gender justice. Years later the PC men (Philosophically Castrated) are rubber stamping anything feminist ask for.

At some point Warren figured out that paying women less would lead to a work force filled with women, why hire a man? Years of research went into this book which tells women 25 ways to increase their pay and shows them where jobs that pay women more, exist.

Bottom line, Women much more so than men, have a partner willing to work long hours while SHARING his pay. She can choose fewer hours, more comfort and safety. While feminists wear the 59 cent buttons and now the 77 cent buttons spreading a lie – saying the difference is do to sexism and oppression and proves we don’t care about women, consider this. IF women were 93% of the deaths in the work place, we would be reading that we don’t care about women’s lives and those deaths are proof. We would all be wearing 93% buttons. All students in American would know this.

So now we will have white collar feminist women in nice offices telling us that those blue collar men breathing pollutants, dying young, or risking losing limbs and lives, really do have less value than their sisters sipping coffee in warm offices trying to figure out how to get money from blue collar men for white collar women. Hey ladies, here is an idea, promise Biden, Obama, Clintons your votes and get those white collar politicians to take money from blue collar men for your sisters. The white collar politicians care as little for those men as white collar women do, unless of course a few hundred die at once like the twin towers.

SD

PS buy warren’s book and send it to Obama.

Feb 4, 2009 - 10:02 am 42. Alan:

I am certainly for people being paid what they are worth in the market place. If men and women are doing the exact same job and bring all of the same credentials to the table their pay should be very close if not equal. Their will always be a bit of subjectivity. The thing I worry about with this new bill is the chilling effect it may have on a mans ability to get a job or move up through the organization. I will explain. I have spent my whole career in Human Resources. I went through the 80’s and 90’s when affirmative action was at it’s peak. It is still a major road block for equality in hiring and promotion. Anyway, there was a bit of a backlash against affirmative action and companies, in an effort to appease people that were questioning AA, claimed they did not have quotas but only goals. What a load. Why have a goal if you are not going to do something extra to achieve it. Well if you do something extra for one group you necessarily do less for other groups. Also, managers bonus’ were tied to “diversity” hiring. So, it benefitted them greatly to pass over white males in hiring and promotion. If there were white males that were equally qualified or slightly better qualified (than minorities in the applicant pool) for a position or promotion they would more than likely not get the nod because the managers would then have a great deal of explaining to do when audited by the HR department. Audits were ongoing for every job filled internally or externally. To finally come to my point. Why hire males at all? To avoid pay lawsuits, most of which will be absolutely frivolous, you just hire females and given that that would not be practical just be sure to pay the men you do hire 5% less and keep them there. This legislation will cause problems for men in the workforce, trust me.

Feb 4, 2009 - 10:30 am 43. LouAnn:

Steven Deluca: “Bottom line, Women much more so than men, have a partner willing to work long hours while SHARING his pay. She can choose fewer hours, more comfort and safety.”

When I took a lower-level job in an effort to pare down my hours, I was working and my husband was not, so I didn’t do because everything was “safe.” If we had not always lived a frugal lifestyle, I couldn’t have even attempted to slow down my manic pace.

“So now we will have white-collar feminist women in nice offices telling us that those blue-collar men breathing pollutants, dying young, or risking losing limbs and lives, really do have less value than their sisters sipping coffee in warm offices trying to figure out how to get money from blue-collar men for white-collar women.”

It’s clear how bitter you are judging by your choice of words. You remind me of my brother, who I get along with well, surprisingly. I think I’m the only female he tolerates. But all that spitting, seething bitterness about women … someday he’ll explode and I’ll be visiting him behind bars. And you …?

Feb 4, 2009 - 2:28 pm 44. JB:

Hey LouAnn, Lay off Steve. If you have a point make it. He made his & your only point is HOW he made his point. So is Steve right or wrong? Focus dear.

Feb 4, 2009 - 9:19 pm 45. Robert Swords:

This has gone on since the 70’s. I find it all rather ridiculous and childish for both sides to engage in this senseless debate. Men don’t have some of the options on the job that women have such as maternity leave, able to leave early to pick up kids from daycare(if this exists) and such. I think the only thing to consider for anyone in a job is whoever is the most able bodied person for the task.

Feb 5, 2009 - 7:55 am 46. zimmy:

Seems like LouAnn ‘feels’ that only women are allowed to complain. They’ve been doing that since Betty Friedans book in ‘63. Thousands of books later, many tens of thousands of articles and constant male bashing isn’t enough for womyn like her. How dare men actually have a point.

Her failure to logically respond to the point about men being 93% of all job related deaths is telling. Her dodge that men are the ones who breathe pollutants, work in coal mines; do long-distance truck driving, etc, etc is also telling. In the case of trucking, many men are away from their families for days at-a-time while the wife is at home (with the kids?).

Women like LouAnn are not honest with themselves; their pathological agenda gets in the way of linear and honest discourse. That’s why in the long run their self-serving dishonesty is a lost cause. Too bad that in the meantime so many men will be negatively affected by such feminist dogma.

Feb 5, 2009 - 8:19 am 47. Tcobb:

As the saying goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I remember hearing about a study that someone did comparing the income levels of Americans of Irish descent versus that of Americans of Italian descent. Much to the surprise of the person making the study there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups, which seemed intuitively bizarre. Then someone took the same data and broke it down further by age groups. Surprise, surprise–when you compared the incomes of the two groups broken down by age it turned out there was no statistically significant difference in income between the two groups.

I have often wondered whether the income disparities that are cited across gender and racial lines don’t suffer from the same type of statistical myopia.

Feb 5, 2009 - 9:28 am 48. Ann Bares:

Interesting article and discussion. As a compensation consultant, one who spends her days opening the hood and looking at the inner workings of compensation programs, I have a number of concerns about this legislation – the Paycheck Fairness Act in particular. See more information at -

http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_force/2008/08/heads-up-us-hou.html

http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_force/2009/01/a-missing-link-to-paycheck-fairness.html

http://compforce.typepad.com/compensation_force/2009/01/summary-thoughts-on-the-paycheck-fairness-act.html

Feb 5, 2009 - 5:35 pm 49. blogengeezer:

So working High Steel, building skyscrapers and bridges, a man standing on a beam 70 stories up, guiding in a steel girder will make the same as a woman, I agree, depending on the equal number of girders she guides or the number of welds, bolts or rivets. BTW how many women are in that well paying line of work that only attracts a specific demographic? maybe the new congress, in the name of equality, should mandate on each job, the same number of women High Iron workers as men….Whether they want to or not…being forced to work the job is the next step… on our highway to Communism. DaFlikkers

Feb 5, 2009 - 6:34 pm