In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama regurgitated that widely discredited claim that: “Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work.”
Then to a rising crescendo of only Democrats clapping, Obama concluded, “This year, let’s all come together—Congress, the White House, and businesses from Wall Street to Main Street—to give every woman the opportunity she deserves.”
As economist and American Enterprise Institute Adjunct Scholar June O’Neill recently pointed out, “The 77 percent statistic … simply compares the annual earnings of women and men who are full-time, year-round workers.” Actually, O’Neill says that women’s average earnings, which often reflect career and family-related choices, have been rising compared to men’s for several reasons—none of which have to do with pay discrimination.
Does the president really believe that men make more than women for the exact same job? He doesn’t say, just that there is a difference and he wants to stop it. But pay discrimination has been against federal law for decades. If the president thinks there is widespread pay discrimination—and it would have to be widespread to get that large of a difference—he should produce the evidence.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the federal agency charged with fighting workplace discrimination. Where are the EEOC lawsuits?
There are certainly EEOC lawsuits alleging hiring or promotion discrimination, but there appear to be very few instances of pay-discrimination lawsuits where a company has a job that pays a set wage or within a range.
What the president is really hoping for is legislation that will give him and bureaucrats the power to micromanage wages across job sectors. Congress should deny him that wish.
It is very difficult to have a serious policy discussion with people who don’t use serious economic numbers, which may be one reason why Washington, and the Obama agenda, have hit legislative gridlock.
February 11, 2014