Yesterday’s Washington Post clarified how the “gender pay gap” is calculated:
This metric does not take into account the different types of jobs, varying levels of experience and education, or women who lose seniority and promotion opportunities when they leave the workforce temporarily to care for children, which they do in larger numbers than men. Still, it is widely used as a measuring stick.
The Post informed readers that the gap isn’t what it appears, that it doesn’t actually measure discrimination against women. Nonetheless, the paper justifies promoting this misleading statistic with the claim that it is “widely used.”
Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Post’s story was sparked by legislation in Maryland to purportedly mandate “equal-pay” between men and women. Yet, the bill specifically authorizes unequal pay for any “bona fide factor other than sex or gender identity.”
It’s already against the law for employers to pay women less for the same job or to deny equal opportunity for advancement. This legislation, on the other hand, seems designed to create full-employment for lawyers. If passed, employees could sue their employer for “assigning work less likely to lead to promotion or future opportunities.”
Sen. Susan Lee, the bill’s sponsor, proclaims that, “Any gap is unequal and unacceptable.”
What about the gender pay gap in the Maryland Legislature? Using the same misleading metric, female legislative employees make less than what males make.
Unacceptable!
So, why don’t legislators fix their own pay discrepancy before they dictate to everyone else?
Or better yet, they could simply stop peddling a divisive non-solution for this dishonestly hyped “problem.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Misleading Metric”
The creation of victims is a function of present day and very poor political theory. It will end when all of the groups simultaneously converge on the various capitals, tar and feather their leaders, and run the out of town for failing to keep their promises.
America is not Lake Woebegone, and all of the children (men and women) are NOT above average. The fact they can support and be fooled to the extent they are might be proof of the opposite.
Indeed, JFB.