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Tag Archives: gender wage gap
5 Real Things You Should Know about the Paycheck Fairness Act
Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.
The liberal political website Think Progress has posted a new blog titled “5 Things You Should Know About the Paycheck Fairness Act.” As a supporter of the bill, Annie-Rose Strasser writes that:
1. The Paycheck Fairness Act is not new
2. Pay Equity is a real problem
3. Lost Earnings have serious consequences
4. Existing law doesn’t go far enough
5. Mitt Romney has not taken a position on the bill
Click here to see her more detailed post.
It’s true that the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) is not new and Mitt Romney has not taken a clear public position on the bill but the rest of her points are simply misleading. As a woman who is strongly opposed to the Paycheck Fairness Act, I decided to make my own list on what you should really know about the Paycheck Fairness Act:
1. The Wage Gap is Due to Individual Choices Made by Women, Not Discrimination.
Strasser writes that, “overall, women make 77 cents to a man’s dollar.” This oft-repeated statistic is entirely misleading because it neglects occupation and education. It just compares the median wage for a wage-earning female with the median age for a wage-earning male. On average, women do earn less than men but that’s mostly because of individual choices.
Men and women tend to be interested in different career choices. Men are more likely to choose highly lucrative college majors such as engineering and computer science. On the other hand, women are more likely to choose lower-paying majors such as education, English, and psychology.
Women are also more likely to choose safer and more flexible jobs. Studies show that women enter and leave the workforce at a much higher rate than men. Men are more likely to have dangerous jobs, high stress jobs, work longer hours, and travel more for work.
2. The Wage Gap Disappears When Comparing Apples to Apples.
When you compare apples to apples, the so-called wage gap disappears. Actually, the wage gap swings the other way: men are paid less than their female counterparts on average. The average salary for a female mechanical engineer is $61,100 a year, while for males it’s $60,400. Young, childless, single urban women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts. Women who have never had a child earn 113 percent of what men earn. Unmarried college-educated males between the ages of 40 and 64 earn nearly 15 percent less than their female counterparts.
3. It is Already Illegal to Discriminate against Women in the Workplace.
The PFA is completely unnecessary. The 1963 Equal Pay Act already bans sex discrimination in the workplace. We need fewer laws, not more. This bill is less about stopping female discrimination and more about benefiting trial lawyers.
4. The PFA Would Expose Small Businesses to Frivolous Lawsuits.
The PFA would be a gift to trial lawyers. It would require the federal government to collect information on workers’ pay classified by race and sex. The PFA would make it much easier for any person to file a frivolous class-action lawsuit with punitive damages against employers. It would enrich trial lawyers since damage awards would be uncapped under the PFA.
5. The PFA Could Increase Female Unemployment.
The PFA raises the liability employers’ face when hiring women. The bill could have the unintended consequence of actually hurting the same people it was supposedly trying to help. It could lead to employers hiring fewer women due to fear of costly frivolous lawsuits. The last thing we need is a law that makes employers hesitant about employing women.
The Myth of the Gender Wage Gap
Originally posted at FreedomWorks.org.
President Obama has often criticized the so-called gender wage gap. This is a bit hypocritical since a new study finds that the Obama White House pays women less than men on average. According to the 2011 annual report to Congress on White House staff, the median wage for males was $71,000 while the median wage for females was $60,000—18 percent less. Of course, like many have already pointed out, these statistics do not signal discrimination because it is not comparing men and women who hold the same job and do the same work. It’s not fair to compare the salaries of a female Staff Assistant and the male Deputy Assistant to President Obama.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration continues to spread myths about the gender wage gap. Obama considers signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 to be one of the key achievements of his presidency. This pro-trial lawyer legislation makes it easier for women to file lawsuits if they feel they are being discriminated against in the workplace. But the fact is that gender discrimination plays little to no role in pay disparity between men and women. While the law may seem well-intentioned, it imposes recordkeeping burdens on employers and could lead to employers hiring less women due to the fear of frivolous lawsuits.
Barack Obama’s campaign website said “despite decades of progress, women still make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.” But he never tell us how they calculate this oft-cited misleading statistic. The U.S. Census Bureau finds the median wage for full-time male and female workers and then calculates the difference. Their research finds that males do earn more than females on average. But they are not comparing apples to apples. The government statistic neglects occupation; it’s not comparing men and women in the same job who have the same educational backgrounds.
Women, on average, earn less than men mostly because of individual choices. Discrimination is not a key factor in the gender pay gap. Men and women tend to be interested in different career choices. Men are more likely to major in engineering, mathematics, and computer science in college. These overwhelmingly male-dominated majors are highly profitable. Conversely, the top college majors for women are education, English, and psychology. Women tend to be interested in the social sciences which normally pay less money. More women than men are enrolled in college and all of them are free to major in whatever they please.
Studies show that women enter and leave the work force at a much higher rate than men. Many women wish to take off some time from work to raise children down the road. Therefore, they choose more flexible jobs. On the other hand, men are more likely to have dangerous jobs, high stress jobs, work longer hours, and travel more for work. Men represent 93 percent of all on-the-job deaths. These types of jobs generally have higher salaries.
When you compare apples to apples, the so-called wage gap disappears. Young, childless, single urban women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts. Women who have never had a child earn 113 percent of what men earn. Unmarried college-educated males between the ages of 40 and 64 earn nearly 15 percent less than their female counterparts.
The gender wage gap is largely due to individual choices that women make, not discrimination. Obama’s campaign website stated that “Barack Obama believes the government needs to take steps to better enforce the Equal Pay Act.” But any government intervention to “fix” this nonexistent problem will be counterproductive. Women should reject the flawed notion that government is always the answer.
