Thread: There Is No Inequality In Woman's Pay

Some people would expect me to ignore the empirical evidence of my own experiences over a life time regarding women’s pay compared to men’s. Instead they expect me to believe that women are being cheated in salaries even though my personal experience is contrary to that idea. They use theories concocted from statistical information to promote their cause. The fact is that the disparity in earnings between men and women is due to factors other than the rate of pay for a specific job. This then would explain the contradiction of my personal experience with the statistics that are used to validate the theory of pay discrimination, the implication being that, there is unfair treatment of women compared to men. When in fact the reason for it is the free choices women make regarding their jobs.

According to Dr. Claudia Goldin Harvard U labor economist who wrote in The American Economic Review (referenced in an article in The Upshot New York Times): “’The gender gap in pay would be considerably reduced and might vanish altogether if firms did not have an incentive to disproportionately reward individuals who labored long hours and worked particular hours. Occupations that most value long hours, face time at the office and being on call — like business, law and surgery —tend to have the widest pay gaps. That is because those employers pay people who spend longer hours at the office disproportionately more than they pay people who don’t. For example ‘Dr.Goldin found. A lawyer who works 80 hours a week at a big corporate law firm is paid more than double one who works 40 hours a week as an in-house counsel at a small business.’”

From the Wall Street Journal: Betsey Stevenson, an economist and associate professor at University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy as well as a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, summed up the issue (disparities in men and woman’s pay): “Well, some women’s choices come about because they’re being discriminated against. Some of women’s choices come because they experience sexism. Some of women’s choices come because they are disproportionately balancing the needs of work and family. Which of these choices should we consider legitimate choices, and which of them should we consider things that we have a societal obligation to try to mitigate, to alleviate some of these constraints so that they can make different choices? A lot of people will say things like, let’s control for occupational choices. But the research is showing us that women are choosing occupations which penalize them the least for taking time out of work.”

So professor Stevenson is taking the long liberal way around to admitting that pay discrepancies are due to the free choices women make, not due to discrimination in the actual rate of pay. I think we can safely ignore her obligatory liberal party line about “sexism and discrimination.”

There are already laws on the books that protect women from pay discrimination, e.g. the Civil Rights act and the 1963 Equal Pay act. So what is the point to more legislation?

The American Enterprise Institute referenced a study of wages from the 2008 Census and it showed that single, childless women 18 to 20 years old earned 8% more than men.

I do not know of any man who says that women should not receive the same pay for the same job. But I really think that in a world full of real problems the endless obsession about so-called woman’s issues is a liberal attempt to create an issue where none exists, to promote their own liberal agenda. Liberals love laws that are supposed to make things “fair” (but in fact make thing worse).

I do not know of any man who says that women should not receive the same pay for the same job.

It's also equal pay for equal work. Job and work are not always the same. How hard someone works at a job should also be rewarded on the same level.

But that aside, if men do not object to same pay for same job or equal work for equal pay, then why object to laws that codify that? Because believe me there are still major problems in this area for many women. There were tons of exemptions and loopholes along with major exclusions, including almost all white collar positions that were excluded from the 1963 law. Some of these were corrected by a follow-up law in 1972, but not completely. Then enforcement was an issue, having a law as we know means nothing if the law isn't enforced, and the EEO process was rigged so badly that most women who were clearly discriminated against weren't able to find a correction through that process. In 2009, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changed this process so that victims of pay discrimination could file a complaint within 6 months of discovery of the discrimination, whereas before, it was 6 months of the paycheck receipt regardless of when you discovered it. Most hiring and pay information is confidential and unavailable to employees, so they wouldn't even discover they were being discriminated against until long after the time has passed that they could file a complaint with EEO. That has now been corrected, so fewer companies and employers will try that sort of discrimination.

Equal pay for equal work is not a liberal agenda, it's an agenda to correct wrongful behavior in the work force. Even with the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act there will be those who take advantage, there will be victims who live their lives with less than they were entitled to because they never knew they were entitled to more.

Standing up not only for same pay for the same job, but equal pay for equal work for women is no different than standing up for higher wages for all American Workers by ending illegal immigration, excess immigration and free trade treason.

The other issue in fair employment is to be certain that employer policies ensure that even within the same job description that people who work harder, longer and smarter with better results are rewarded more than those who don't. This moves into the area of merit increases and steps up or down with the pay-grade which in many companies is broad with large ranges and very subjective. This applies not only to women, but all workers, minorities and men.

Unfair pay and rewards is not limited to women, it applies to race and age as well, and now even to drug users and felons. But the way our laws are written some apply to one but not to the others. Eventually, things will get done and many of these problems will be fixed, but it takes everyone getting on board and working together to solve all the examples of unfair work place discrimination. That starts with admitting it and pulling together to stand tall for all of our American Workers to eradicate all forms of inequality and unfairness.

So any time there's a movement to solve any of these issues, as Americans, we all need to support all of them, regardless of what some "professor" says who is probably paid by some guilty company who paid for the study, or thinks because she's paid well at Harvard, then everyone must be. The old "well I get mine, therefore you must be getting yours" when we know absolutely and unequivocally this is not true.

In sum, there is nothing here to deny, if it didn't exist there wouldn't be complaints, and there is nothing in the goal of equal work for equal pay for anyone, women, blacks, other minorities, older workers, disabled workers, felons, drug users, and so forth, to be against. We have to stop enabling those who cheat, exclude, penalize and discriminate against our workers.

Our American Workers are the foundation of our entire economy. How well they do determines our GDP, corporate profits, tax revenues, balanced budgets, self-sufficiency, independence, liberty, happiness and better futures for the next generation.

When Americans aren't united on this, the bad actors responsible for all these grievances see a wedge issue, they see a divide where they can stick their stake to an argument against doing the right thing, fixing the problem, and complying with our laws and principles of equality, both by word and spirit.

Not all of these laws benefit everyone immediately, laws for women don't benefit men directly, laws for black Americans don't benefit whites directly, but at the end of the day, they benefit us all over time.

Like now, white men are being hurt along with women and blacks by illegal immigration, excess immigration and free trade treason. We've got your backs like we've always done, all we ask is that you have ours as well.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall.