The Fake Equal Pay Crisis

Democrats still claim that there's a major wage gap between men and women. Women only make 77% of what men do! But no worries, Democrats are trying to come to the rescue again, this time with the "Paycheck Fairness Act".

Unfortunately for them, the statistic they use is very misleading. Julie Borowski explains:

Women do earn less than men, on average. But here’s what Harry Reid doesn’t say—the oft-cited U.S. Department of Labor’s wage gap statistic only compares the median wage of a full-time working woman with the median wage of a full-time working man. 

There are numerous factors that affect a person’s pay such as education, years of experience, and the working condition. The Department of Labor’s statistic neglects to hold these variables constant in their statistical study. It does not compare apples to apples. 

The PFA is based on the fallacy that the disparity between wages for men and women is based solely on discrimination. But even the same government department that conducts the annual gender wage study finds that claim false. The Department of Labor wrote in a 2009 report that:

“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 differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

The pay gap does not exist because of gender discrimination but individual choices made by women. Women and men tend to gravitate towards different college majors. Women dominate lower-paying majors such as education, English, and psychology. Men are more likely to choose high-paying majors such as engineering and computer science. This signals that men and women tend to have different interests and values that cannot be controlled. 

 Click here to read the whole thing. It's well worth your time. She concludes:

"the PFA would hurt women by increasing the liability employers’ face when hiring them. The last thing we need is a law that makes employers hesitant about hiring women in this stalled economy."

For those who wish to see a video on this topic, see this for an excellent presentation by economist Steve Horowitz.

So there we have it. Another dishonest campaign for more government intervention and political power.

One final note: why is Mitt Romney, who is allegedly better on the economy, so gutless on this issue? Or is it ignorance? Or politics? There's no excuse for it.