Tuesday, April 4, was Equal Pay Day. It’s the day 20 percent into the year some use to mark the supposed fact that women earn 79.6 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
This “gender pay gap” is concocted by taking the median pay for all men working 35 hours a week or more and comparing it to the median pay for all women working 35 hours or more — without regard to the actual number of hours worked* or occupation chosen.
It’s a ridiculously phony statistic. I know that; you probably do, too. But does Sen. Elizabeth Warren?
“The game is rigged against women and families, and it has to stop,” the Massachusetts Senator proclaimed on last year’s Equal Pay Day. “It is 2016, not 1916, and it’s long past time to eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace.”
Gender discrimination. That’s bad, no? Sen. Warren fervently argued that the “gap” is the result of evil, insidious sexism.
The money-grubbing misogynists perpetrating this crime against women certainly deserve to be called out and held accountable!
Thank goodness, the folks over at The Washington Free Beacon did just that. Using public records, the Free Beacon found a U.S. Senator exacerbating the problem with an even bigger gender pay gap — women making a mere 71 cents on every man’s dollar. This Senator has hired five men at six-figure salaries, who make more than all the women employees, with only one woman besting the $100,000 mark.
That Senator? Elizabeth Warren.
On Tuesday, each of her 15 female Democratic colleagues took to the Senate floor to jaw about “equal pay.” But not Warren.**
Not even a tweet.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Men, on average, work more. The “gap” also ignores work history, and similar factors that have more direct bearing on the choices of women than the discrimination of employers.
** It is worth noting that Snopes.com “debunked” the Free Beacon’s charge using the same arguments economists and others have used to debunk the “gender wage gap” itself — without acknowledging the ominous parallels.
