Wednesday, April 9, 2014

WaPo Slams Obama on Talk of a Male-Female Wage Gap

Nice work by Glenn Kessler at WaPo, he writes:
Few experts dispute that there is a wage gap, but differences in the life choices of men and women — such as women tending to leave the workforce when they have children — make it difficult to make simple comparisons.

Obama is using a figure (annual wages, from the Census Bureau) that makes the disparity appear the greatest—23 cents.  But the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the gap is 19 cents when looking at weekly wages. The gap is even smaller when you look at hourly wages — it is 14 cents — but then not every wage earner is paid on an hourly basis, so that statistic excludes salaried workers.


In other words, since women in general work fewer hours than men in a year, the statistics used by the White House may be less reliable for examining the key focus of the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act — wage discrimination. For instance, annual wage figures do not take into account the fact that teachers — many of whom are women — have a primary job that fills nine months out of the year.  The weekly wage is more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but it does not include as many income categories.
June O’Neill, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has noted that the wage gap is affected by a number of factors, including that the average woman has less work experience than the average man and that more of the weeks worked by women are part-time rather than full-time. Women also tend to leave the work force for periods in order to raise children, seek jobs that may have more flexible hours but lower pay and choose careers that tend to have lower pay.

Indeed, BLS data show that women who do not get married have virtually no wage gap; they earn 96 cents for every dollar a man makes.



Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis surveyed economic literature and concluded that “research suggests that the actual gender wage gap (when female workers are compared with male workers who have similar characteristics) is much lower than the raw wage gap.” They cited one survey, prepared in 2009 for the Labor Department, which concluded that when such differences are accounted for, much of the hourly wage gap dwindled, to about 5 cents on the dollar.
“This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct,” the report for the Labor Department said. “The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”
A 2013 article in the Daily Beast, citing a Georgetown University survey on the economic value of different college majors, showed how nine of the 10 most remunerative majors were dominated by men:
1.   Petroleum Engineering: 87% male
2.   Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male
3.   Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male
4.   Aerospace Engineering: 88% male
5.   Chemical Engineering: 72% male
6.   Electrical Engineering: 89% male
7.   Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male
8.   Mechanical Engineering: 90% male
9.   Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male
10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% male
Meanwhile, nine of the 10 least remunerative majors were dominated by women:
1.  Counseling Psychology: 74% female
2.  Early Childhood Education: 97% female
3.  Theology and Religious Vocations: 34% female
4.  Human Services and Community Organization: 81% female
5.  Social Work: 88% female
6.  Drama and Theater Arts: 60% female
7.   Studio Arts: 66% female
8.   Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% female
9.   Visual and Performing Arts: 77% female
10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% female
His full analysis is here.

16 comments:

  1. Ok, now can we lay the feminist BS of the "wage gap" to rest at last? This isn't rocket science.

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  2. 4% is a large wage gap. If employers were not discriminating against women, they would not worry about this law. Period.

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    1. Jerry, you obviously do not run a business. Having to worry about one more piece of regulatory BS that could cost you money or cause problems is not fun.

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    2. So saith he who has never been an employer. There are many reasons for employers who do not discriminate against women, as I do not, to resist further onerous and vaguely defined labor laws. Open and manage a business yourself and you will learn this.

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    3. Okay Jerry,

      if these greedy capitalist employers truly only pay women less because they hate women (and not because women, in general, are less productive or cost more to employ for various reasons), why wouldn't they all fire their male employees and save money by replacing them with females? I mean, they do the same work for less money, and those greedy capitalists are all about money, so what gives?

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    4. Ok GOVT TROLL, try to start your own bloody business..and pay women 4% more than men (make it your official policy)...scratch that, 4% more for women is still low why not 40%...you will get the best and brightest talents out there by your logic and you'll be rich.

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    5. Jerry Wolfgang: The nobody that was.

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  3. Surprise, surprise... there's an election coming up and the corrupt oppressive regime is using divide and rule. This is same tactic used by the British in colonial Africa.

    Pay gap? I think we should talk about the pay between the parasitical government sector and the productive private sector… or better yet, how about we talk about the pay gap between Main Street and the parasitical fiat banking sector.

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  4. JW: Troll

    Question for JW, which he won't answer because he is a troll:

    If women did the same work as men for 4% less money, why wouldn't employers just fire men and replace them with women? That would save them 4% of their labor costs, which is quite a huge deal.

    David

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    1. Astute comment, Anonymous, along with your observation that Jerry won't rise to a debate. For an employer, there's more to the economic calculation than just the cost of wages.

      For example, just today I made a job offer, at a significantly higher wage, to a specialist developer who also happens to be female. If my evaluation is correct, her skills and experience will allow her to start day one at a much higher level of productivity than her male counterparts, her team's backlog of outstanding work will decrease appreciably, and my customer satisfaction metrics will increase proportionally.

      I'm hopeful she accepts. One of my competitors has interviewed her as well. I'm also hopeful my evaluation is correct. I've been wrong about new hires before, but not often.

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    2. Exactly. Why does someone go into business in the first place? Is it to pay men more than women? What kind of moron would waste his time going to all the trouble of starting a business and busting his ass day in and day out just to pay women 4% less? LOL!

      Here's the real reason people start a business.....ok, it's going to absolutely SHOCK you! Here it is....you ready?

      *Drum roll please*



      To.....make......M-O-N-E-Y!

      Yes. Shocking I know.

      Delete
  5. Obviously those lists are just proof that high-paying jobs discriminate against women, thus forcing them into lower paying work like social work! Because we all know that there is absolutely no physical, emotional, mental, or psychological differences between genders, because gender is a social construct.

    Obviously what's needed is a law to force engineering firms to hire the same amount of female petroleum engineers as male ones.

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  6. EQUAL WORK DESERVES EQUAL PAY!

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/13741873023/lightbox/

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  7. Politicians are those who steal our money so they can afford to professionally lie to us.

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  8. I worked an assembly line factory job once, making an electric car for kids. There were 3 of us on the line making a sub-assembly. When the supervisor came over to see why we were behind schedule, the lady next to me nodded her head at me. She was right. I am severely left handed. This job required 2 hands. As anony at 6:05 AM's photo shows so eloquently, there is no such thing as equal work.

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