The Wage Gap Myth

Posted by Brian
H/T to Mark Levin and National Review Online

When Like Jobs Are Compared, The Gap Is Significantly Less Than the 28% Touted By Liberals

On Wednesday, Mark Levin spoke of the widely circulated belief, which has been perpetrated by the media and politicians, regarding the supposed inequality of pay between men and women. The common belief is that women in the workplace earn seventy-two cents for every dollar that a man makes.  The only problem: It's not true.  When apple are compared to apples, the gap is a mere five cents. But, that is not how the data is being analyzed by those whose goal is to create a political wedge issue between men and women. Women who hold the same positions, with the same hours, seniority, and other factors are compared, the wage gap becomes virtually non-existent. When the numbers get into the 1-4% range, factors such as types of college degrees, or breaks in service for things like child-rearing can become factors.
The President touts his passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act as proof that he "cares" more about women than Romney, but the fact is, the Fair Pay Act, which mandates against wage discrimination, was in place long before Obama was President, and the Ledbetter Act is nothing more than a symbolic ruse with little to no effect on righting a mythological wrong.  In fact, only 35 cases have been brought to the courts under the Ledbetter Act since it was passed in 2009, or less than ten per year.  Does this sound like there is mass discrimination against women going on in this country?  These cases could have been brought to court even without the Ledbetter Act, under the Fair Pay Act.
Obama is counting on women to be so ill-informed that they fall for this straw-man argument, while ignoring the fact that more women have had to file for unemployment on his watch than at any time in recent memory. Over 780K more women are now unemployed than when Obama took office.  If Obama and the Democrats want to talk about the "War on Women" they need only look at how Obama's own policies have affected working women.
Ir there is any discrimination going on, it is in President Obama's White House, where it has been reported that women are paid "significantly" less than their male counterparts, with some figures running as high as an 18% pay gap.
Obama and the Dems don't give women enough credit for being able to see through their smokescreens. Women are more than capable and intelligent enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.  And they are certainly intelligent enough to know that their concerns encompass more than free condoms, a non-existent wage gap, and the Obama campaign's instruction to "Vote with their Lady-parts."


Obama and Romney on the Wage Gap
By Diana Furchtgott-Roth
October 17, 2012 1:12 A.M.

We hear it over and over again: the myth of the wage gap. In Tuesday’s presidential debate, Katherine Fenton asked President Obama what he intended to do about “women making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn.”

Just one problem: Women make about 95 percent of what their male counterparts earn, if the male counterparts are in the same job with the same experience.
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