Feminists Meddle with the Market
The Paycheck Fairness Act.

By Carrie Lukas

When an economic issue makes headlines, you can usually count on Congress to respond, more often than not with an over-reach that creates more problems than it solves (think Sarbanes-Oxley or the recent housing bailout bill). Today is a rare moment when Congress has the potential to meaningfully address a real economic problem — rising energy prices — with sensible legislation to allow more drilling to increase energy supplies. So what has Congress slated for consideration this week? The Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that is the equivalent of throwing sand into the wheels of our economic machine.

Underlying the bill are the assumptions that our workplace is systematically hostile to women and that existing laws don’t provide enough protection for women. As committee chairman George Miller (D., Calif.) said when celebrating the passage of the bill out of his committee: “This is a historic day in the fight for equal rights for women. If we are serious about closing the gender pay gap, we must get serious about punishing those who would otherwise scoff at the weak sanctions under current law.”

The committee’s press release, like essentially every public statement supporting expanded “equal pay” laws, cites the statistic that women earn just 77 percent of men’s earnings. This “wage gap” is considered proof that the work world’s deck is still stacked against women and government needs to do more to make sure that everyone plays fair.

Yet a statistic that simply compares the wages of the median full-time working man and the full-time working woman tells us nothing about the existence (or lack thereof) of systematic wage discrimination. Many factors contribute to how much one earns, from occupation and area of specialty to education and years of experience. Not surprisingly, once those factors are taken into account, the wage gap shrinks.

Men tend to take jobs that are dirtier, more dangerous, and distasteful than those performed by women. Overwhelmingly, men are the ones working in our sewers, guarding our prisons, laying concrete in the scorching sun, and catching and gutting our fish. They work more graveyard shifts and longer hours, in fact, the Department of Labor estimates that even full-time working women spend about a half an hour less each day on the job than men do. Women disproportionately work indoors, in safe, climate controlled buildings, with regular, or even flexible, hours. More people are interested in working in libraries and school buildings than on the fishing boats featured in Deadliest Catch, which is why physically strenuous, dangerous jobs pay higher salaries.

Feminist activists tend to be frustrated with this analysis, and the explanation that the market (not nefarious men) is primarily responsible for women earning less. They don’t think it’s fair that jobs that require an education, like social work or teaching, are less valued in the marketplace than positions in trucking and sanitation work that require only characteristics like stamina and a high tolerance for filth.

They’ve long championed policies, dubbed as “comparable worth,” that would give government officials the power to supersede the market to make sure that women’s contributions aren’t undervalued. The Paycheck Fairness Act takes steps in that direction. The Department of Labor would issue “guidelines” that compare the wages of different jobs to give employers a sense of what is considered “fair.” The guidelines may not have the force of law (yet) but certainly would be a powerful specter hanging over employers seeking to avoid costly litigation.

And employers would have additional reason to fear that they would be targets for litigation if the Paycheck Fairness Act becomes law. This bill would subject employers to unlimited compensatory and punitive damages, even for unintentional pay disparities, creating potential paydays certain to inspire trail lawyers to action. The bill would also strip employers of the ability to defend differences in pay as based on factors other than sex, such as experience and performance, leaving courts to dictate what constitutes a legitimate pay structure.

Of course, no congressional legislation would complete without a healthy serving of waste, and the Paycheck Fairness Act doesn’t disappoint. It would create a new grant program to instruct women on salary negotiation tactics and require the Department of Labor to train employers in strategies for eliminating pay disparities. It seems almost quaint to ask, but where in the Constitution is Congress granted the power to engage in this type of activity? Taxpayers should be outraged that their money is being put to such use.

Federal law already outlaws sex discrimination. This legislation would afford women few new protections against actual sex discrimination, but would raise the cost of employment and discourage workplace flexibility. It is exactly what women — and the economy — don’t need. If this is what we can expect from the rest of this Congress, Americans should hope for an early recess.

i disagree with this analysis. it oversimplifies a complex issue

XxAxX said:

what "analysis"?

Why can't women bargain for a higher wage with their employer themselves?

Are women so poor and meek and disabled just by being female that Big Strong Manly Congress needs to save them?


It's bullshit. If you're a woman and you feel like you aren't getting paid what you should be, bargain for a higher wage or take a job that makes a higher wage. It's what men have to do, and it's a cornerstone of the capitalist philosophy.

Fucking socialists...I swear.

As committee chairman George Miller (D., Calif.) said when celebrating the passage of the bill out of his committee: This is a historic day in the fight for equal rights for women. If we are serious about closing the gender pay gap, we must get serious about punishing those who would otherwise scoff at the weak sanctions under current law.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

It was an analysis that actually provides accurate outlook on what people are paid....

People take the phrase "men get paid more than women", but they don't describe that composite number is a compilation of many different tiers of pay.

Try to look at it this way...

Tier 1 - Corporate/Executive
Tier 2 - Upper Management
Tier 3 - Middl Management
Tier 4 - Worker class
Tier 5 - Blue Collar

If you compile all of these tiers into one composite number, then men do get paid more than women. The problem is that does not say that for JOB 'X' a man is going to get paid more...that is simply not true.

At Tier 1, you have an accurate comparison...the jobs are pretty much the same. As you work down towards Tier 5 however, the jobs that men do are typically paid more than women by quite a bit.
Why? Culturally, in the blue collar culture, a lot of women don't work at all unless it is part time or retail. That is not absolute but typical. You don't see too many women doing landscape, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, service types of work.....

You cannot determine "Fairness of Pay" according to the composite number, which is what Congress is trying to do. It must be looked at more apples to apples than that.

I have never worked with a women, in the same position as I had, that was getting paid less.

seekingtruth said:

on the first part - i call bullshit.

on the second part - how would you know? are your salaries not confidential where you work?

honestly - the figures are out there, just see my other thread. you can deny them all you want.

seekingtruth said:

on the first part - i call bullshit.

on the second part - how would you know? are your salaries not confidential where you work?

honestly - the figures are out there, just see my other thread. you can deny them all you want.

on the first part - i call bullshit.

on the second part - how would you know? are your salaries not confidential where you work?

Dauphin said:

this is classic 'blame the victim' reasoning.

please read the article again and this time, pay attention to the intent behind the legislation. thankis in advance