If the jobs are truly equal, you can’t argue against paying equally.
Equal Pay Day [April 17th] is supposed to represent the day that women have finally earned enough to make up for last year’s wage gap. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time working women earned 81 percent of what full-time working men earned in 2010 (the most recent data available), leaving a “gap” of 19 percent between the sexes. But that means to make up for that “under-payment,” women would have to work through March 10. So we are celebrating Equal Pay Day more than a month late. Yet the mistaken logic of Equal Pay Day goes deeper than this simple calculation. Equal Pay Day presumes that the difference between men and women’s average earnings stems from discrimination, as President Obama suggested in his official proclamation last year: “I call upon all Americans to recognize the full value of women’s skills and their significant contributions to the labor force, acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination, and join efforts to achieve equal pay.”
The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers.
Obama pays his women about 20% less too. The whole point of pushing for equal pay is to enable more lawsuits. THere is a substantial difference in the likelihood of dying on the job.
You are (typically) wrong, stop quoting lies.
Jesus, the GOP and the Right cannot discuss any issue without treating the people like they are idiots.
Here is a list of Obama’s staff and their salaries:
http://spreadsheets.latimes.com/white-house-salaries/
I went over it, and there are several cases of males and females with the same title AND SALARY. For example, Nancy-Ann DeParle is Assistant To The President And Deputy Chief Of Staff For Policy, and makes the SAME MONEY as the males identified as Assistants to the President for the other policy areas.
When will the Right stop lying? When will the American people hold them responsible for their lies?
When will the Right stop lying?
Never… Even when they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar up to the fuckin’ elbow…
When will the American people hold them responsible for their lies?
See previous response.
Get rid of parties and use random sampling and you might get a chance.
Until then, you’re just trading one bunch of lying bastard millionaire 1%ers for another bunch of lying bastard millionaire 1%ers.
Its doesn’t matter what animal filled the sack of shit, in the end, you’re still just getting a sack of shit.
That is not the basis for the pay gap for women. Take the full spreadsheet, and you will find that the average woman is paid less. One site said 18% less, I calculated opnly an 8% gap of $7000. This is what is meant by equal pay for equal work, that the averages should be equal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The facts are in your other pants. ALl the GOP and the Right know are lies, hate, greed, fear, and racism. I have seen nothing constructive from the Republicans, and everything to do with rooting for bad news and fomenting poverty and hate and divisiveness.
Facts are right there. Calculate for yourself. Obama pays his women on average less. According to his data, he pays 2 of them nothing at all!
Why don’t they stay home and goof off? I would.
LOL. Have you been to the mall on weekdays?
“If the jobs are truly equal, you can’t argue against paying equally.”
That’s a might big IF.
Same knowledge
Same skills
Same devotion to job
Same output
and
No pregnancy and paid maternal leaves
True.
Equal Pay / Rank does not mean equal work.
I’ve observed the norm to be women of the same rank as men do less work in physically demanding jobs (i.e. the Military). But they do get paid the same.
It’s also not uncommon for women in the military who choose not to get deployed to get pregnant in order to get into a non-deployable state… or get pregnant while deployed to be sent back stateside.
In either case it forces her unit to be deprived of necessary manning for the mission.
Sad but true. During my last trip overseas (Iraq) we had 2 females get pregnant during predeployment training, and 3 more get pregnant during the four-day pass we got just before we left… they were sent home within the month. Of the 5 of them, at least 4 were EXTREMELY vocal about not wanting to go anywhere.
The thing is though, with their attitudes and motivational level in general, these types of people are better staying stateside and sucking up tax dollars there. Across the pond, shitbags get people killed… while simultaneously sucking up tax dollars.
I agree and have observed the same. But in the eyes of liberal politicians, it’s necessary for them to condition society to believe that women can do everything physically as well as a man.
I don’t get paid any more on my job than a woman doing the same job with the same credentials. There may well be a difference in retirement pay for one reason; 39 years on the job and 415 accumulated days of sick leave. That isn’t discrimination against women.
There is paid paternity leaves
There is maternity leave but no paternity leave in the military.
A male service member may request to go on leave for what you or I would call “paternity” leave, but that’s if his command allows it.
Men qualify for the same leave benefits under FMLA that women do.
Try again.
Translation: You’ve never been in the military. You should really try not to armchair quarterback something you’re demonstrating your ignorance on.
Men in the military are NOT entitled to ANY paternity leave. Women in the military get it out of obvious reasons.
Men who do go on what you or I would otherwise call “paternity” leave get to do so with their command’s permission. They are not entitled to it like a female military member.
Be sure to tell the U.S. Military about FMLA. I’m sure they’d be interested in hearing what you have to say on the matter. 🙂
My reply was for jbenson2 who made no mention of the military. For right or wrong the rules frequently apply differently to the military.
As a general rule though, pregnancy should not be an argument for paying women less, as men also get leave under FMLA.
Sorry for the confusion.
“The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers.”
I think the real point is how society values certain careers that are traditionally seen as male-dominated, or female-dominated careers. Overwhelmingly female dominated careers are valued less monetarily, with little to no reasoning, just “that’s how it is”. How this situation gets changed is beyond my intellect though.
Not only specific careers but locations. What Left will hide as a snake legs, in Wall Street dominated NYC economy … females get MORE pay on average for the same job categories than males… In politics dominated DC, just the opposite. Free market always does right.
Silicon Valley is lagging in hiring of women. New push is going to be making sure tech companies are hiring equally, including at top levels of management. New York Times is out with a story of how venture capital firms are not giving money to women owned tech firms in equal share. I think with the Lilly Ledbetter Act and a civil rights division that is being very aggressive, treating any statistical disparity as evidence of discrimination, the reelected Obama admin will start correcting for the low number of women programmers. Doesn’t hurt that Silicon Valley hasn’t produced the campaign contributions this time around.
Are you serious?
I’m 20 years out of engineering school (BSEE/MSEE), so things have probably changed a little, but back then in my 300-600 level courses out of a class of 18-20 there would be perhaps 1 or 2 females. How do you populate a Silicon Valley company with 50% women when there just aren’t enough of them?
In the other engineering disciplines like Industrial Engineering (we EEs called them Imaginary Engineers), and Civil Engineering there were more women, but not nearly at parity with the men. I highly doubt it is the case now either.
Larry Page and Sergei Brin don’t a single vagina between the two of them. Must be discrimination at play.
I would wager it had more to do with how we direct children in the choice of their vocations than any lack of skill on the part of women. I personally know several female EE’s that are actually competent in their jobs, imagine that.
Money is a great thing to have. It is not the greatest thing. Perhaps women are smarter than men and pursue greater things than money.
“The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers.”
So there is no wage gap then. Is that what we are saying? Or that we can only solve the wage gap if we remove choice from the system. Obviously woman are making bad decisions in what career path to take, so someone should make the decision for them. They need to be put in fields that pay more money.
My freshmen Soc 101 students have a hard time understanding that “women earn 81% of male wages” doesn’t mean that if a woman applies for a job, she’ll be paid only 81% of what a male would be paid. Thank goodness, this is rarely the case these days. No, it’s the aggregate, and work done primarily by women tends to be the lowest paid. For example, day care worker, low pay, almost entirely women. Elementary school teacher, higher pay, still mostly women. High school teacher, higher pay, men and women in about equal numbers. University professor, highest pay, more men than women. The question is, are some jobs paid less because they are perceived as ‘women’s work’. Also, have women had equal opportunity to achieve in the workplace; for example, if a profession uses an ‘old boys club’ network to succeed, or if insufficient role models and mentors exist for women in certain jobs.
I think we’ve come a long way, on the whole, but aren’t there yet.
In 1976, I had to take a critical thinking course in the college where I now teach. We were given a word problem: a boy and his father are in a car accident; the boy is rushed into surgery, but the surgeon says, “I can’t operate on this boy. He’s my son.” Today’s students don’t even have to think. The surgeon is the boy’s mother. In 1976, a classroom of students came up with solutions like, “The surgeon is the boy’s adoptive father, the surgeon was fooling around with the other guy’s wife,” etc.
Liking the TeaPublican/Democrat war on “who supports women’s rights more” ! Give it up because Teapublicans don’t stand a chance.
Having Anne Romney front and center to hide Mitt’s miserable ratings with women will only go so far. She will only solidify those the support of Teapublican women that already do what their husbands tell them to do – or else!
Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong but on jobs (people out of the work force who want to work or underemployed), income and cost of living on energy and food, people are much worse off now than they were.
Green energy/jobs on the other hand has had billions thrown at it and is down about 10,000 jobs. Sales for the Ford electric car stink. Job growth related to wind energy, etc. haven’t panned out.
On the other hand there has a been a big increase in jobs related to fossil fuels despite everything Obama, Mr. Cap and trade and no more coal plants, has done. Coal exports are doing very well. If the US doesn’t want to smelt iron China does and the rest of the planet seems to be happy to burn coal.
Most women are more than smart enough to figure out the facts.
Most, if not all, liberals want to turn everything into some sort of drama.
Something is either anti-women, anti-black, anti-poor, anti-gay, or whatever the flavor of the day is. If our society simply promoted and hired people based on achievement (i.e. meritocracy) instead of a quota system, then we’d all be better off.
But no, the liberals manage to argue that meritocracy is not fair and ultimately racist in their eyes… which is why corporations who do any business with the federal government are required to hire and promote based off of quotas. It’s the same misguided logic which fostered the creation of the Community Reinvestment Act.
Spell out what a particular job requirement is and stick to it. Don’t create double standards and don’t play the gender or race card when someone who doesn’t meet the minimal requirements doesn’t get hired.
Liberals are always trying to find someone who may be undeserving of a particular job, pay raise, promotion by trying to tell that person they’ve been wronged because of what’s between their legs.
Liberals don’t actually want to solve the root cause of problems… they just want to pass the buck and let problems fester by trying to promote this philosophy that most people have been wronged.
Conservatives are just as much against a meritocracy as that would mean they cannot award comfy jobs to their cronies as much as the liberals do.
The politicians do not want a meritocracy as they would have no jobs.
Most do not deserve the ones they have.
Cursor_
I haven’t observed that to be the case, but it’s certainly possible.
In either case, IMHO I think a meritocracy would fix a lot more problems than a quota system which does nothing more than pass the buck.
Obama already solved this problem in 2009 by signing an Equal Pay law.
http://nytimes.com/2009/01/30/us/politics/30ledbetter-web.html
If he solved this problem in 2009 with that law, how is it still a problem in 2012?
The most disappointing thing about Obama, who is rather likable and I like that he is smart, is that his presidency has sucked and has been ineffective. He didn’t even do something simple like normalize relations with Cuba.
No wonder they are trying to invent crap that makes no sense, if Obama talks about his record he’s toast.
And his has done so much talking with so little effective action to back it up, I view listening to him speak of his plans or ideas as torture.
I am admitted a bit pissed he didn’t, as far as I know, manage to get anything done with “green energy”.
Barring a miracle or something extraordinary, I think he’s is on a one-way course for losing in November and I wouldn’t be too surprised if by June some respectable polls show him down by 8% or 9%.
Hope for what? Change? There was some … he did get out of Iraq (thank god) … early in his administration it was important to give him time because he inherited a bad economy but it has been nearly 4 years of bad and worse and he has spent trillions and we have little to show for it.
Please don’t tell Obama what comes after a trillion.
Women!!!!
What ya gonna do?
Sadly, in most instances, they are no better than men. Who is going to save us now? They destroy their unique values in order to compete against men for wages.
Silly creatures.
I suppose that’s why there’s an effort to feminize boys in school.
Beat the nature out of them and nurture metrosexuality?
Job pay is so complex. Depends on demand,skill, hard labor requirements. In terms of the same job Woman should be paid equally vs a Man doing that exact same job. Does it happen all the time everywhere? Not a chance. Equality is a Utopia thought that will never happen.
Self preserving sexist women choose to opt-out when it comes to sharing the workload in our highly dangerous workplaces that remain the domain of the expendable male. Those who work in such fields such as mining, oil drilling etc will be paid more. Women’s lives are aligned with ‘life’. Men’s lives aligned with ‘death’. Which is more successful?
Why does the federal government have to mandate what private companies should pay their employees?
The free market should decide what the pay should be for any individual.
If a company decides not to pay a woman the same as a man, then she can decide not to work for that company. If she is a really hard, productive worker, then that company lost out on a really good employee. A competitor could then hire her and pay her for what her skills are worth.
In the long term, any company that decides to not pay a person their “market value” is shooting themsleves in the foot. ANy company that decides not to hire a productive, skilled person is shooting themselves in the foot as well. Eventually that company would go out of business, if it refused to hire and pay its employees what their value is whether they be women, black, or midgets.
Why are women valued less in the free market? Maternity leave is one good answer. Why invest the same money into an employee that may leave the company after she gets pregnant and the company has to replace them?
Case in point (not federal, but suitable example): San Franscisco minimum wage is now $10.24/hr, and the
Subway sandwhich franchises in SF have stopped offering $5 foot-long subs …. if they’re forced to pay $10/hr to a largely unskilled labor force, they can’t afford to offer the highly-advertised producted.
I have to hand it to Mr. Dvorak, he’s hit the nail on the head.
While men in IT are able to take leave on FMLA, that doesn’t mean they’ll take all they’re entitled to (if any at all). Mothers, on the other hand, often take as much leave as they can, and sometimes when the home finances permit it they stay out of the job market until the child is at least school age. When they return to the workforce, no one would assume they should paid at a competetive rate as if they never left!
Thomas Sowell has written extensively about this, such as ECONOMIC FACTS AND FALLACIES . A worthy read!
I have heard women on TV complain that there aren’t enough woman CEOs. Strangely, I have never heard them complain that there aren’t enough women in the mines, in combat, in inner city police forces, working as high steel workers…
When will they stop discriminating against men and allow them to work flex time, take summers off, work shorter hours, take a few months off when their spouse is pregnant….?
Oh, and we wouldn’t expect our pay to drop one cent. 😉
If you haven’t heard, you aren’t listening. Women have complained loudly and often to be let in to “men only” jobs from combat to construction.