The myth of the wage gap

Diana Furchtgott-Roth wrote a magnificent piece about the myth of the wage gap, which one of those undecided's asked about...

We hear it over and over again: the myth of the wage gap. In Tuesday’s presidential debate, Katherine Fenton asked President Obama what he intended to do about “women making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn.”

Just one problem: Women make about 95 percent of what their male counterparts earn, if the male counterparts are in the same job with the same experience.

While Obama bragged about increasing regulations through the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and Romney talked about the women he hired while governor of Massachusetts, Furchtgott-Roth says, "Neither candidate pointed out that women don’t make 72 cents on a man’s dollar, or 77 cents on a man’s dollar, one of Obama’s favorite statistics."

This comes from comparing the earnings of all full-time male employees with all full-time female employees. This averages together women who work as social workers with men who work as investment bankers; female English-literature majors with male engineers; and male loggers with female administrative assistants. Part of the gap is differences in hours worked, because full-time means any number of hours above 35 hours, and full-time women work fewer hours than men, on average. When comparisons are made between men and women who work 40 hours per week, women make 87 percent of men’s earnings.

There’s really no reason that, on average, men and women should be paid the same if they choose different majors in college, different jobs when they graduate, and different hours of work. What’s important is comparing men and women with the same job tenure in the same position in the same firm. If there’s a big difference under those circumstances, then there may be discrimination, giving women grounds to sue.

When economists compare men and women in the same job with the same experience, they earn about the same.

So another pervasive myth that the Left likes to use -- and one bought into by far too many on the Right -- is burst. That is, if you can get your fellow American to see the myth for the apples-to-oranges it is.

ADDENDUM: Carrie Lukas of IndependentWomen'sForum also took note of that debate question, as well as the Furchtgott-Roth article, adding...

I guess it is inevitable that the wage gap myth had to be a part of the official presidential debates of 2012. Though thoroughly debunked, it’s a staple of the Left’s campaign to convince women that our society is a heartless, sexist patriarchy and a micromanaging government is the only way women can hope to get a fair shake.