Viewpoint
Anti-Business Liberals Keep The Pay-Gap Myth Alive
Posted 06/11/2012 05:54 PM ET
The other day as part of a
"Professionals" panel on NBC's "Today" show, the program's chief medical
editor Nancy Snyderman said, "We (women) still make 77 cents to the
dollar (compared to) men. It's ridiculous." It sure is ridiculous,
mainly because it's not true.
Another panelist, attorney Star Jones said, "My bread does not cost
30 cents less than a man's bread when he goes into the grocery store.
Equal pay for equal work."
I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of pundits and activists
— almost always on the left — who don't know what they're talking
about, spouting off in the media about how women don't make as much as
men for doing the same work.
The reason men, on average, earn more than women is because men, in
many cases, do different kinds of work than women. More men work in
dangerous jobs that pay higher wages — like jobs in coal mines and on
oil rigs. They're also more likely than women to work the overnight
shift, and that also pays more. Women also take more time off to take
care of their children, which over time means less pay.
It doesn't take a scholar to figure that out. It's obvious.
Nonetheless, a scholar — James Sherk at the Heritage Foundation — did
figure it out and earlier this month, he issued a report that said:
"This gender gap is not the result of rampant discrimination. Rather,
it exists because men and women often work in different jobs, work
different hours and have different qualifications. When work experience,
education, occupation and hours of work are taken into account, the
average woman makes 98 cents for every dollar earned by a man."
Anti-business liberals are always telling us that cold-hearted,
money-hungry corporate types care only about the bottom line. So then
why — if it's true that women are getting paid 77 cents for every dollar
a man makes; if women are not getting equal pay for doing the same job —
why would any company hire any man at all?
Why wouldn't companies only hire women to do all the work and save
23% on their labor costs? This is not a rhetorical question. If greedy
businessmen are fixated on "maximizing profits," how do we account for
so many "overpaid" men in the workforce?
I expect very little from what passes for the mainstream media. And
they rarely disappoint. But it would be nice if the next time the
"Today" show, or any other news program, put someone on the air who
carelessly threw out misleading statistics about supposed pay
inequality, a real journalist would step in to set the record straight.
I know ... hoping for something like that is what's really "ridiculous."
No comments:
Post a Comment