DENNIS M. PATRICK: WAR ON WOMEN? PAY DISPARITY? FIDDLESTICKS!
As we approach the “silly season” and the November mid-term elections, Democrats are in trouble and they know it. People have a belly full of Obama administration scandals and ineptitude: IRS, VA, EPA, GSA parties, Benghazi deaths, Obamacare, Keystone XL pipeline, illegal immigrants, Solyndra, New Black Panthers, Executive Orders (rule by fiat bypassing congress), Fast and Furious to name just a few. Meanwhile, Harry Reid has effectively closed down the US Senate with very few US House bills acted upon in this session. People are mad.
Democrat solution? Pander to the gullible.
Fortunately for businesses across the country, pay equity legislation failed to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate in mid-April.
Trotting out the tired old political slogan “War on Women,” the Dems cite the 77 cent difference between women’s pay for every dollar men are paid. Question: Is this a fair example of discrimination or just more class warfare rhetoric?
Take a look. The Equal Pay Act signed by President Kennedy in 1963 required equal pay for equal work. This law essentially resolved the pay disparity issue. Equal pay for equal work means women and men doing the same work for the same hours with the same training and experience must be paid commensurately. Are they?
Yes. Many factors come into play. Women work fewer hours per day and per week and per year than men. They spend fewer years as fulltime employees outside the home. They take jobs that provide flexibility so that they may have time off for personal reasons. They avoid jobs that require overtime. A greater percentage of women than men tend to work part-time. These factors are addressed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their findings and reports.
Additionally, women much prefer jobs in clean, comfortable working conditions with pleasant co-workers and for that are willing to accept modest pay. Men are more willing to accept unpleasant, dirty and dangerous work to receive higher pay. (Men suffered 92 percent of all work related deaths in 2012.)
Any pay gap is a result of lifestyle choices women make in their personal lives rather than discrimination in the work place. Men make choices. Women make different choices. Women choosing to juggle children and employment spend less time on the job. Women with children have good reason to seek a 9 to 5 job rather than a 60 hour work week in a high pressure or blue collar job. In fact, childless women make about the same as men. Equal pay for equal work? People get paid for the work they do, not for the job title they hold. When discrimination occurs, there are adequate laws on the books to address grievances.
To make the pay disparity issue a part of the “war on women,” Obama must take advantage of people’s ignorance of the facts stated above. When Obama asserts that women make 77 cents for every dollar men earn he is not truthful. Women are paid for the work they do, not for the title of the position they occupy. If the 77 percent statistical citation were factual based on evidence, and the law was followed (equal pay for equal work), then employers would have to pay men 23 percent more based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics findings of the work men perform.
With regard to education, there are no gender restrictions in courses of study. Math courses are open equally to both men and women. Nevertheless, women tend to choose courses that qualify them for lower paying jobs in the job market.
As Christina Hoff Sommers wrote in the liberal Daily Beast, the fraudulent 77 cent pay discrepancy figure “does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week.” What does account for the discrepancy are lifestyle choices.
The truth is that women’s pay has generally risen to parity. Men’s pay, on the other hand, has stagnated while thousand of good blue collar and technical jobs have moved overseas where the foreign business climate is much friendlier than it is in the United States.
War on women as indicated by pay disparity? Fiddlesticks!
Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)