I hadn't seen those statistics for women of color... African-American women earning $.69 and Latinas earning .$59 for every dollar paid to men? As if $.78 wasn't bad enough! It's obvious that we must continue to fight for women's rights. Sure, we've come a long way in this country, but we still have a long way to go.

Great post, Jen.  The statistics for women of color are really interesting.  Is there information on how much these have -- or haven't -- improved over the last 45 years.

Good idea including the Tweeting points.  By the way, the idea of Tweeting points came up in Sunday night's #fem2 Twittercasts.  Hashtags for the #diversitywin!

My perspectives in #fairpay and Women don’t ask.

jon

i just wonder how much your statistics are skewed due to women taking extended 1+ years maternity leave.  In my opinion if you make the personal choice to leave work for an extended period of time you are also making the choice to apss up on opportunity.  I would like to see statistics that take this factor into account.  I do agree that there is an imbalance, however it may be much less than being represented.

Lastly, when things are finally equal who will come forward to pronounce that?  My fear is the road to equality is coming to an end but there are many who are still driving at full speed.  Who's going to protect the men if/when it goes the other direction?  Already we are seing workplace demographics shift dramatically.  Our laws should be blind to all reference of gender, color, race, religion, and or any other way we divide and segregate ourselves.

"In fact, authoritative studies show that even when all relevant career and family attributes are taken into account, there is still a significant, unexplained gap in men's and women's earnings. Thus, even when women make the same career choices as men and work the same hours, they still earn less."

ok but does the study you are citing takw these clearly known factors into account?  And based on those studies what are the real numbers?  See how things can be misrepresented.

It's ironic that you mention Wyoming as a counter-example; Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote, and the first state to have a female governor, historically a leader among the states in women's rights. I wonder where in history they dropped the ball?

Great post.  Thanks for all of the information.

women are paid only 78¢ on average for every dollar paid to men AND"African-American women earn 69 cents and Latinas earn 59 cents for every dollar paid to men."

This strikes a cord with me, this is unacceptable.

I wonder how long will fight for women's right has to go on before women get an equal pay. This is absolutely unacceptable in an age of such progressive advancement.

Natural Cosmetics

I wonder if anyone has done a study on why some women are recieving less pay than men.  Is that information available as well?

I think that the comparison between DC and Wyoming makes another point.
On average, the *really* dangerous work (which pays higher) is done by men.
In DC, where there's paper-pushers galore, the equity is far closer, and reflects the hierarchy issue (glass ceiling) rather than inequity of pay per unit worker.
In Wyoming, where there are many dangerous jobs to do, men make out better.
There's a lot of high-paying work that is available to women, which they won't do on average.
So, on average, they'll get paid less.  But they'll live.
If you note, there are also studies that point to the fact that more men than women work on commission (which is fiscally dangerous).
The point should be that all members of any single profession average out, not both genders.
Compare apples to apples and the numbers look pretty normal now, IMHO.

I'm all for equal pay, but this article constitutes a gross misrepresentation of the facts.  Where to begin?

"women are paid only 78¢ on average for every dollar paid to men."

Well, that's very interesting.  Could it be that women make different life choices that explain some of that pay gap?  Oh, I see you've taken that into account:

"...authoritative studies show that even when all relevant career and family attributes are taken into account, there is still a significant, unexplained gap in men's and women's earnings."

This is true; it's on the order of 5% (see http://www.aauw.org/research/behindPayGap.cfm).  I'm not saying that a 5% gap is insignificant.  It's not.  It is, however, not even in the same ballpark as the figures starting at 22% cited in this article.  You can't ignore confounding factors except when confirming that an effect is significant...that's just bad statistics.

"Hmm - so in 45 years, women's wages compared to men's have only increased by 19 cents?"

That sure sounds paltry...you can't even buy a gumball for 19 cents.  Except, oh!  You meant 19 cents PER DOLLAR!  Put another way: if average pay for men increased X% over those years, average pay for women increased (X+32)%.  Hm.  Put yet another way: over those 45 years, the pay gap, in terms of percent, has nearly halved.  Maybe those 19 cents aren't so paltry after all.  Finally, none of these numbers take into account any of the many factors other than gender that influence pay.  Who knows what story the real numbers might tell.

"African-American women earn 69 cents and Latinas earn 59 cents for every dollar paid to men."

Wait...for every dollar paid to African-American and Latino men, respectively?  Or are they being compared to _all_ men, including white men who are, on average, more educated?  The way this article has been going, I'm tempted to believe the latter.

I find it hard to believe that all of this is accidental.  It's common knowledge that factors such as education and parenthood influence earning potential; to present a bunch of numbers that ignore this is negligent at best and manipulative at worst.  Next time, let the facts speak for themselves.

This whole subject has been driven by decades by the kind of misinformation and indeological pandering exemplified by statements like, "In case you didn't already realize, in the United States, women are paid only 78¢ on average for every dollar paid to men."
The innuendo qualifies as a falsehood, whether deliberate or not. Every pundit and blogger who wants to be taken seriously on this issue has to have some background in statistics and has to have actually read the technical studies on the subject.  Jen clearly does not qualify, and so is just another contributor to mass misinformation.
For the U.S., all studies that have taken into account  the nature of the work, educational level, work experience, time on the job, etc. have not found pay  discrepancies of more than a few percent between the sexes or between the races.
And where  small discrepancies are found, while sexism or racism MIGHT be an explanation, it is also an equally good hypothesis that the discrepancies only reflect the influence of some variable other than sex or race that was not considered in an analysis.
But it admittedly is much more fun to simply inflame with misinformation than to inform with careful analysis..... And much easier, too.

This thread is a great example of dynamics that crop up in any online conversation of this issue: guys displaying their lack of understanding of the issue and respect for women diverting a call to action or problem-solving question into an uninformed debate about sources and/or the relevant contributions of different factors all filtered through sexist attitudes.

It seems to me pretty unarguable that gender, race, and intersectional wage differences are a complex problem and need to be addressed on a bunch of levels -- including the Paycheck Fairness act.

So I'd like to ask the guys in this thread a couple of questions:

1) do you see wage disparities are a problem?

2) if so, what are you doing about it?

3) do you support the Paycheck Fairness Act?

4) if so, how are you helping lobby for it?

Thanks,

jon

The comments by Stuart and others touch on some significant factors in this complex issue. There are many reasons for salary inequities between workers, male or female. In the professional area, a major factor is the previous salary history. Women may not only take maternity leave (more than men do), but may stay out of the work force until their kids are in high school. When they come back, they are unknown quantities and their salaries are less than others, tied to the low salaries in their past. Some, not all, turn out to be high achievers. I had such a case and I gave the woman the highest raises I could out of the regular raise budget. Who got the lowest raises to enable me to do that? The men over 55, who I knew would not leave. Unfortunately, the company did not have a policy for correction of salary inequities outside of the regular raise budget. The same thing occurred earlier with a man who had been a high-school teacher. His salary there was low, so he was offered a salary only a little higher. He turned out to be a high performer with a lower salary than others doing similar work, but there was no way of knowing that when he was hired. This situation can affect men as well as women, but these circumstances are more likely to happen with women.

Personally, I oppose both the Lily Ledbetter Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Both of these are further massive government intrusions into private life.  Neither serves any useful purpose other than putting a greater stranglehold on economic decisions that ought be left to private industry and individuals.

The Wage Gap is one of the most detrimental myths of modern feminism.  I encourage others here to actually READ the other side of this debate and understand it.

Too often, people get behind legislation based upon the GOOD INTENTIONS of the people sponsoring the bill.  I have no doubt that the intentions of the authors of this legislation are noble...what I question is whether their methods actually create a result of more fairness.  I don't think they do.  I think their primary creation will be frivilous lawsuits and unemployment.

We all know where the road that is paved with good intentions leads, yet many of us seem ready to step on the gas going down that road.

The Lily Ledbetter Act is a great example of good intentions gone wrong.  The intention is "women should be paid fairly."  That's a good intention, without a doubt.  The problem is that the way the Lily Ledbetter Act attempts to solve the problem is by removing all limitations on fair pay lawsuits.  Now...name one other situation regarding employment where there is NO statue of limitations.  (silence)  You're not answering, because there is no answer.  There are statues of limitations on all of it.  Except equal pay.  Why should women have the right to sue an employer that underpaid them 30 years ago, but nobody else be permitted to sue for other reasons?  That's not "fairness."  That's "special privileges for a protected class." 

In this case, the protected class is women. I am presumably supposed to applaud all such cases of special legal privileges when the protected class is women....and supposed to boo and hiss in all such cases of special legal privileges for men.  I don't buy it.  BOTH of those situations are unfair, no matter the sex of the person receiving the special privilege.

Less freedom is NOT a cure for less fairness.  Ever.

If you're interested in knowing the truth about pay gaps, read on:

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=621
http://www.glennsacks.com/blog/?p=989
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=797045&page=1

I have studied this some, well a three credit course a year ago at Penn State so not nothing but it was only part of my major. 

The 78% number is a lousy number.  It is used all the time but it doesn't tell any real truth.  It is calculated by taking all the money earned as wages by women, so most of Oprah's money isn't counted, and dividing it by the number of women in the workforce; then taking all the money earned as wages by men, so all the money paid to major sports figures is counted, and dividing it by the number of men in the workforce.  The women's figure is then divided by the men's figure and currently you get 78%. 

It does not reflect at all any circumstance where a woman is actually getting paid less money to do the exact same work as a man.  That is already illegal and only a fool would think they could get away with it (and why would they want to?).

The racial numbers are actually racial comparisons not race to gender.  By that I mean that black women make $.69 compared to an average Caucasian man's $1.  Black men make $.80 compared to ever Caucasian man's $1. (this is all from memory but I think it is about right) Latino women earn the lowest which seems to be cultural in the Latino community rather than in practices of employers.  These numbers have been getting closer to each other, but only because Caucasian men have been earning less per capita than previous years not because women and minorities have been earning more.

I just read the act and it won't do what most of the supporters claim it will do.  It does fix some of the language of the old acts but it doesn't really change much of anything.  it adds a little provision for some negotiation training for women and girls that might be a nice little project for some non-profits around the country but that really isn't the problem.

Discrimination has moved into harder to legislate areas.  For instance in the supermarket industry the fastest way to store manager is through the produce department.  Most produce department workers are boys because the crates are heavy, most produce department assistant managers are young men because they promoted one of the boys, most produce mangers are men because the assistant manager gets the promotion when the old produce manger gets the store managers job.  What isn't clear is why produce makes a person more qualified to be manger than grocery, or deli, or bakery where women are more often the mangers.

The act does make addressing an example like the one for the workers that clean the Capital Building in D.C. easier and for that reason I do support the bill.  (again from memory so some of the details may be off).  Women that work on these crews were getting about $8 an hour while men were getting $11.  The men were given a different job classification even though the only thing they did differently was run the floor buffer, which was not a job done every night.  It will make correcting this sort of thing easier and since it is a government job most likely all the employees will getting $11, but in the private sector the correction would most likely be to drop the men to $8.

What this bill doesnt' address is the "choices" issue which is dismissed as being dismissive.  The issue of women's choices is at the heart of the disparity in pay.  Until we value as a society the choice of child birth and child rearing we have an obligation to legislate protections for the women that choose not to see the species end.  We must legislate child care, leave, paid sick days, seniority protection and other means of supporting the choice of family.

The issue of women's choices is at the heart of the disparity in pay.  Until we value as a society the choice of child birth and child rearing we have an obligation to legislate protections for the women that choose not to see the species end.  We must legislate child care, leave, paid sick days, seniority protection and other means of supporting the choice of family. </snip

Thank you Daniel.  I agree with this sentiment completely.

I think that a policy of attacking contributing factors to the pay dicrepancy (flexible hours, job sharing, paid maternity leave, paid sick leave etc) we would have a better chance of healing the gap than just assuming that it's due to flagrant sexism. 

If there were more options for sharing the family care responsabilities,  we would see more families taking equal responsability for work and home.

Right now, I feel that we have acheived equality in the workplace so long as we don't have dependents.  Unfortunately, the workplace is largely still organized in a way that does not accomodate the realities of having children or elders in your care.  I think it's a fair statment that women are still doing more to adjust their careers to accomodate these responsabilites than men.    And let's be honest, it is more acceptible for women to ask for time to handle these responsabilites than men.   How many dads feel comfortable asking for paternity leave if their company doesn't already have a program?  Is it culturally more acceptable for women to stay home with a sick child than a dad?

Thanks Amber.  I think you're right on the mark.  
I would add, there is a fundamental problem with discussing equality in a forum called "Women's Rights".  If we're really interested in equality - why not have a forum called "Equality".  Discussing equality in a forum whose name only represents a subset of the people interested is at best clearly unequal by design and at worst alienating and confrontational to all other interested parties.
Being interested in equality in a forum dedicated to equality could mean encouraging and educating all people to consider their all of their options before deciding to have children for example, or when deciding how much danger they are willing to accept in their work to receive higher pay, or how much personal time they are willing to trade for higher pay, or how much they are willing to trade time with their kids for money.  Notice it's possible to discuss these issues in terms of what's possible for all people without resorting to discrimination.
Personal choices are the factors that determine pay rate.  Not chromosomes.

Don't forget men have rights too.  Why don't women pay men child support? why don't men get to see kids after a divorce?Or barely ever...From lots of stories I hear and from what I've seen with friends of mine,  it seems the women don't get paid directly in salaries quite as much because they get their salary and 50-75% of their ex-husband's salary, which is usually high enough that they don't even need their job in the first place.  And if it isn't quite high enough to live on by themselves well they have their husband thrown in jail for not supporting them better even though he can't see the kids and can hardly support himself with the few pennies he has left after losing all the money  he has to give her.  No wonder there are so many foreclosures.