Perpetuating the Wage Gap Myth To Pass Pay For Trial Lawyers

One of my favorite arguments from the left revolves around women in business and the notion that if socio-progged women don’t get their way then all women are doomed. When Democratic women weren’t doing well in primaries leftist pundits from broadsheet to broadcast wrung their hands and woefully remarked that the entire business was a setback for all women. Doomed, they were. Except that a record number of Republican women were running – and winning – primaries all over the country, but pay that no mind.

The same tactic is upon us yet again, and once columnist, Amy Siskind for the Daily Caller, in particular had the vapors over the Paycheck Trial Lawyers Act Paycheck Fairness Act. It’s a benign-sounding little piece of legislation, the title of which prompts people who hear it to say “Yes, paycheck fairness? I’m for fairness!”

The truth is that there’s nothing fair about it.

For the better part of a decade I’ve been watching self-described champion for women consistently lower the bar for standards, instead of rising to meet it – in the name of women’s rights. I’ve watched as they convinced themselves that the only true way to achieve equality is to tear down the opposition. Even if feminists tear down the bogeyman patriarchy and dominate men in all areas of life, they still won’t be happy because deep down they’ll know it’s a false victory. Achievement obtained by lowering your opponent to your standard as opposing to rising and surpassing their standard of output isn’t achievement. It’s mediocrity. Personally, I believe women are better than that, but SHHH. Don’t do anything to upset the victimhood apple cart because then young women may want to think for themselves and the entire racket of feminism ran by women who butter their bread by playing Chicken Little to the subsequent generation would be penniless.

I apply all of the above to the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act. Why?

Aside from creating a boon for trial lawyers, the entire legislation is premised on the lie that there exists a wage gap between the sexes.

The advocates of this now-failed legislation (the GOP blocked it Wednesday) are correct in the fact that there does exist a wage discrepancy. Funny thing about that though; it’s not the women who are earning less. It’s the men.

… according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%).

What? Yes!

Here’s the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it’s known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don’t live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.

Before the left jumps to use this last graph as the last straw supporting the myth of the wage gap, continue reading. The wage gap the feminist left likes to tout as a way to cultivate Democrat votes? It’s a myth.

Recognizing the importance of unbiased research on the pay gap, the Labor Department recently contracted with CONSAD Research Corporation for a review of more than 50 existing studies as well as a new economic and statistical analysis of the pay gap. CONSAD’s Report, which was finalized on January 12, 2009, found that the vast majority of the pay gap is due to several identifiable factors and that the remainder may be due to other specific factors they were not able to measure.

CONSAD found that controlling for career interruption and other factors reduced the pay gap from about 20 percent to about 5 percent. Data limitations prevented it from considering many other factors. For example, the data did not permit an examination of total compensation, which would examine health insurance and other benefits, and instead focused solely on wages paid. The data were also limited with respect to work experience, job tenure, and other factors.

The Labor Department’s conclusion was that the gender pay gap was the result of a multitude of factors and that the “raw wage gap should not be used as the basis for [legislative] correction. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

So young, unmarried women with no responsibilities are out-earning men and if women are out-earned by men after marriage and children it’s a result of … choice? The choice that feminism was supposed to be all about?

(Interesting how the government’s report was scrubbed from the web upon Obama’s transition to the White House. The Department of Labor Findings run in direct contradiction with the fallacies perpetuated by the Paycheck advocates.)

The pay gap has nothing to do with employer discrimination; it has to do with choice. Let’s employ a little common sense: statistically, women are the likely of a family to forego a career for more time with the family, and maybe it’s because they want to. I know the idea sickens liberal feminists like Linda Hirshman, but it’s an essential variable intentionally omitted time and time again.

Still, the left persists, as with the Paycheck Fairness Act.

President Obama plans to press Congress today to pass pay-equity legislation that would make it easier for women to sue employers who pay them less than their male counterparts, the White House said Monday.

One more time, for the laws on the books:

Paying someone less because of their sex is illegal and two federal laws, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, provide the framework whereby victims of pay discrimination can seek redress.

The legislation is nothing more than an open invitation for a more litigious workplace atmosphere based on falsities used for the promotion of a political party.

Many groups were opposed to S. 3772 for the detrimental effect its enforcement would have on the already frail U.S. economy. The time and cost of complying with reporting requirements would make it prohibitively expensive for some small businesses to hire more workers. The threat of litigation under the proposed law would have resulted in fewer women being hired, especially those in low-skill sectors.

The ACLU remarked on the need for “pay equity.” If equal pay is that important to you, stay a single, unmarried woman. It’s not the employer’s responsibility to make up for the free choices of its employees made on the employees’ free and private time. Sure, businesses can provide whatever they want and observe whatever they want in order to remain competitive. Still, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a business willing to compromise its bottom line by paying the same wage to Employee A who works long hours and Employee B who chooses to work less due to family reasons. Certainly the federal government shouldn’t exceed its boundaries as outlined in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution by attempting to further intrude in the private sector.

Which brings us back to silly missives like this from Ms. Siskind:

if you have any hopes of taking the White House in 2012, you’ll need women voters. But after shooting down the Paycheck Fairness Act today and perpetuating a boys’ club in Congress, you ain’t showing us much.

Boys’ club? No, that was destroyed by Title 9.

Here’s what we know from the 2010 election: issue #1 for women is economic security. That’s why women gave the GOP a once-in-a-generation opportunity to win us over. Absurdly, the Republican Party then turns around and pushes women away by thwarting our financial security. Ya know, us ‘wimminz’ — the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.

So the GOP is “thwarting our financial security” because they refuse to penalize employers for the choices of its employees? I respect and like the Daily Caller, which is why I was shocked to find such a froshy diatribe devoid of any intellectual value beyond “I hate Republicans” valley-girl rhetoric under its mast.

Siskind is concerned about finances and blames the GOP for everything yet doesn’t include this administration’s plans to tank the dollar via QE2 (and the economic construct within which Bernake uses as his scapegoat, that Obama won’t reduce taxes), the lingering question of extending the Bush Tax Cuts (which will pump discretionary funds and end up a revenue positive for the economy), the fantastical unemployment rate despite the trillion-dollar stimulus spending (financed by China and our children), the government’s inability to ease up off the private sector by way of corporate tax which suppresses growth – no. The problem is those pesky Republicans.

I disagree. The problem is either purposefully or genuinely economically inept women perpetuating bogeyman patriarchy inanities while ignoring the inconvenient variables of choice and truth.

Does sexual inequality exist? Sure, for men and women alike but it’s shameful to misrepresent women’s choice as an excuse to persecute the private sector. The private sector has a hard enough time with such actions from this administration.