Tuesday, April 8, 2014

$0.77 gender wage gap a myth, admits White House

“Seventy-seven cents captures the annual earnings of full-time, full-year women divided by the annual earnings of full-time, full-year men,” Stevenson clarified. “There are a lot of things that go into that 77-cents figure, there are a lot of things that contribute and no one’s trying to say that it’s all about discrimination, but I don’t think there’s a better figure.”

For years, the White House and others have continued to push the "women make $0.77 for every dollar that men make" AND claim that this discrepancy is due to gender discrimination even though that claim has been debunked almost since the moment it was first used. Well the White House has finally admitted that this "gap" is not the result of discrimination and is not a "apples to apples" comparison.

It has been shown time and again that when you properly account for occupation, experience and education there is NO gender wage gap. It does no good to compare ALL women's salaries to ALL men's salaries because generally, men and women do jobs in different ratios. There are more women nurses than men. There are more men as garbage men then women. These different careers pay different scales based on market demands. Additionally, women spend more time (generally) out of the work force then men as a lot of women take time out of their careers having kids. This affects their length of experience. The Democrats know this just as well as we do but they continue to say it because it makes a good sound bite and too many people don't question it.

I strongly suspect this brief interlude of honesty will not last and before long both the White House and Democrats will be back with the this old, worn lie.

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