Today is Equal Pay Day, the day until which women have to work to make up the earnings they were shorted in 2009 compared to their male colleagues.
Frankly, it's a little embarrassing that the fight for equal pay continues in the year 2010. It's hard to find anyone who will say, on the record, that women don't deserve to earn the same as men.
And yet, the wage gap persists. Women still earn just 77 cents for each dollar a man earns. The average woman in my state of Connecticut needs a bachelor's degree just to earn what a man with a high school diploma earns. The gap is larger in the African-American and Hispanic communities, it persists across the income spectrum, and, astonishingly, in some occupations it's actually getting worse with time.
Even when studies control for factors such as education, job tenure, and choice of industry, the gap remains. Labor economists have conducted study after study and controlled for every measurable variable--job characteristics, union membership, ethnic and racial background, educational experience, and on and on--and still cannot explain nearly half of the wage gap.
Women, in America, in 2010, are still being paid less than men simply because they are women.
This is, of course, wildly offensive to our sense of fairness. But it's also an issue of economic security for millions of American families. Two out of every five mothers are their families' primary breadwinners, either as a single parent or as the spouse with the higher income. And the recession is only squeezing these families tighter.
The first law President Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But despite the heroic fight it took to get that bill passed, it simply reversed a truly horrendous Supreme Court decision that barred women from fighting pay discrimination in court. We still need to take legislative action to eliminate that discrimination in the first place.
That's why we need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA). This bill toughens penalties for pay discrimination and puts gender-based discrimination on an equal footing with discrimination based on race or ethnicity. It makes it easier for victims of pay discrimination to participate in class action suits. It prohibits employers from punishing whistleblowers and makes it more difficult for employers to justify discrimination under the law. And it strengthens regulatory programs designed to monitor compliance with fair pay rules.
I've co-sponsored the PFA for the last seven Congresses, and although I'm retiring this year, there are plenty of Senators ready to keep the fight going. But we shouldn't have to. It's 2010 already, for pete's sake. We should get this done.
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Martha Burk: Dragging Our Feet on Equal Pay Day
Equal work for equal pay right? Government should mandate I get paid the same right?
The flawed studies that report such a gap are just simply laughable. For example, the recent study by the American Association of University Women which reported earnings of men and women 1 year after graduation from various levels of education reported that women were only paid 80% of what men were paid. However, the study failed to control for work hours and occupational choices in reporting is key finding. Instead you had to look way back on page 39 for this little gem:
"The regression analysis of earnings one year after graduation for the combined sample of women and men shows a gender pay difference of 5 percent, controlling for educational and occupational choices as well as demographic and personal characteristics."
Even the 5% figure is bogus as the goupings were still too large...such as by combining all doctors and nurses as one category when women are significantly overrepresented in the nursing category and appoximatley even in the doctor category. In other words, even the 5% gap is based on an assumption that nurses should be paid equal to doctors.
Last but least, this democratic republic of ours would not thrive without accuracy in the media. There is legislation to curb profanity. Likewise, there should be legislation to curb unadulterated lies in the news or the news outfits that engage in lies be subjected to outlandish fines. It can be done. For once, Dems, stand up for the people and stop kowtowing to the GOPers. Fox , 1300 talk haters and MSM. Accuracy in the media should be an echo chamber parroted by Dems whenever they appear in the media.
Where are all the women in congress?
Where are all the women in congress?
Where are all the women in congress?
Where are all the women in congress?
Get this!
http://sify.com/news/india-steps-into-history-with-women-s-quota-bill-roundup-news-national-kdju4cdjhca.html
http://sify.com/news/sharad-joshi-lone-dissenter-against-women-s-bill-news-national-kdjvucaejfj.html
http://equalitybylot.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/279/
And I'm 62 and I have worked for companies where the men made more for the same work. In fact the men made more for lesser jobs and made more as an intern than the experienced women who were training them for their job!
If however, you're talking equal pay for equal value or equal title etc., I have a problem. The law of supply and demand runs a successful economy and we forget it at our peril. A-Rod makes 25 million a year because he's better at what he does than billions of other people. Clergy, mothers and teachers, while certainly more important to society than a star athlete, earn low incomes because so many are able to do those jobs. Additionally, if A-Rod were a poor player, he would be exposed quickly and lose his job. On the other hand, those other positions maintain and, to some extent, protect both the good and the bad.
Similarly with other areas. For instance, prostate cancer strikes more often than breast cancer and kills nearly as often, but it gets less than half as much research funding.
The NY Times has reported that 40% of domestic violence 911 calls are placed by men who have been attacked by women. How often do ads or articles about domestic violence depict men as victims?
In the military we appropriately seek equality, but how about making women register for the draft? Our young men are required by law to register, so if there's a draft, only guys will be conscripted. Fair? I think not.
But I have always heard of these "studies". I would really like to see an instance of this claim.
But equality in the workplace is, or should be, something that works both ways. When my female boss ( and she's a darned good boss ) wanted to let two slackers go --one male, one female--she was told by HR that she could let the guy go but not the woman, because management feared cries of sexism from the woman. So the rest of us are saddled with having to do our work, plus pick up the slack left by the woman, who does little work, and that badly.