Patterico's Pontifications

4/9/2014

White House Denounces Alleged Gender Pay Gap; Also Has Gender Pay Gap

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:07 pm



Today is “Equal Pay Day,” which supposedly represents how far into the year women must work to make the same as men. This is based on the hoary and false statistic, which Obama loves to toss around, that women supposedly get paid 77 cents for every dollar made by men. Every single non-hyper-partisan analysis of this claim wholly debunks it, which is why Obama repeatedly gets Pinocchios from the fact checkers for making the claim.

When this 77% number is discussed, the soft-headed or simply uneducated in the electorate assume this means that apples are being compared to apples — meaning all relevant variables are controlled for. But they are not. There is no substantial evidence of a pay gap once you control for the proper variables. Here are Mark J. Perry and Andrew Biggs in the Wall Street Journal:

[E]very “full-time” worker, as the BLS notes, is not the same: Men were almost twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week, and women almost twice as likely to work only 35 to 39 hours per week. Once that is taken into consideration, the pay gap begins to shrink. Women who worked a 40-hour week earned 88% of male earnings.

Then there is the issue of marriage and children. The BLS reports that single women who have never married earned 96% of men’s earnings in 2012.

The supposed pay gap appears when marriage and children enter the picture. Child care takes mothers out of the labor market, so when they return they have less work experience than similarly-aged males. Many working mothers seek jobs that provide greater flexibility, such as telecommuting or flexible hours. Not all jobs can be flexible, and all other things being equal, those which are will pay less than those that do not.

Not only do working mothers choose more flexible jobs, by the way: those who plan to be working mothers choose more flexible careers. Some careers simply do not work for someone who plans to leave the profession for years at a time; your knowledge base disappears and you cannot be rehired. Prospective mothers know this and plan accordingly. There are also issues of education, risk, and other variables that the studies do not account for.

But Perry has a different observation that many will find amusing: the White House has its own pay gap! D’oh!!

In a CD post last September, I documented the significant gender wage gap for the White House staff, based on salary data from the “2013 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff.” An analysis of White House payroll data reveals that the 229 female employees in the Obama White House are being paid a median annual salary of $65,000 this year, compared to a median annual salary of nearly $73,729 for the 229 male White House staffers (see chart above). In other words, female staffers at the Obama White House are paid less than 88 cents for every dollar paid to male staffers, and there is therefore a significant White House “gender pay gap” of more than 12%.

Carnie-man was asked about this, and he insisted that women get equal pay for the same position in the White House. Of course, that is never the question when asked about the free market. The 77% studies look at men and women in the aggregate, not comparing equal positions to equal positions.

And, putting that aside: WHY DOES OBAMA HATE WOMEN?!?!?! I guess he hates them a little less than the bosses in the free market do, but still: he hates them.

Hates them!!

Of course, that is not the point of noting the White House’s own wage disparity: it just goes to prove that even when you are boosting women’s salaries to try to make things look good politically, the natural forces that cause the so-called pay gap are going to operate for you, too.

You’d think Obama would be shamed into admitting reality, but instead he is ordering federal contractors to report the wages they pay together with information on gender (and race, too, because, hey, why not?) That way, he can hector contractors for doing what he himself does.

One standard for me, and another for thee.

By the way, Perry calculates “Equal Pay Day” at the White House as February 20. Mark the date!

36 Responses to “White House Denounces Alleged Gender Pay Gap; Also Has Gender Pay Gap”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. has anybody ever seen gender pay gap and sasquatch in the same room?

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  3. teh Carney folk meh
    smell of beef vegetable
    soup and many lies

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  4. They just don’t care whether lies are spotlighted, as there’s never a price to be paid. Thank you, LSM.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  5. True, but the ‘I work is done’ triumphalism is kind of amusing,

    narciso (3fec35)

  6. Then again, if you’re going to be a jackalope, then facts won’t matter;

    http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/09/tpm-sends-lie-about-mcconnell-halfway-round-the-world-truth-still-on-first-pants-leg/

    narciso (3fec35)

  7. Of course the absurdity of taking up this ‘squirrel’ after having spent a trillion dollars and having little to show for it,

    narciso (3fec35)

  8. Here’s the reason that the GOP may win in the next election but Hillary will be the next President:

    The President is out now on a distraction tour and he always says the same thing, with substitutions where necessary. It goes like this:

    “I don’t know why Republicans oppose ‘issue of the day.’ It is common sense that the ‘issue of the day’ is important to the middle class. Yet, the Republicans would rather distract the public with ‘non-issue of the day,’ rather than do the work of the people.

    “I am working hard every day for the middle class. The people in Washington don’t understand what you are going through.

    “The only reason my agenda is not working is because of the Republican’s refusal to address the ‘issue of the day.’ It is time for the Republicans to put aside their partisanship to work on the ‘issue of the day’ and help the middle class to achieve our American Dream.”

    It is useless rhetoric warmly embraced by a complacent media and the gullible public.

    It works magnificently.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  9. This is why he has to be confronted every day;

    Mr President, there are no jobs, the price of food and fuel is going up, because you have been printing money like there was no tomorrow, everything you do, makes it harder for businesses to stay afloat, much less plan for the future,

    narciso (3fec35)

  10. but Hillary will be the next President:

    The very fact one can make that assumption or state she has a firm upper hand in 2016 already shows just how ideologically and symbolically exhausted America has become.

    For some reason, the torpor of broken-down, amoral liberalism has a beguiling quality to a lot of humans, in the US and elsewhere.

    Don’t cry for us, Argentina.

    Mark (14c5d3)

  11. No disrespect, narciso, but confronted by who?

    The people who confront are ridiculed and dismissed as racist or ignorant, isolated as “others” incapable of understanding.

    I guess I could start a list or you can just Web search “conservative” or “libertarian” or “Republican.”

    It is accepted as fact that people who identify with groups associated with the “Tea Party” are racists. It is a “fact” that Republicans hate women. It is a “fact” that Republicans hate immigrants. It is a “fact” that conservatives hate homosexuals. As a matter of fact, by typing “homosexuals,” it is a “fact” that I hate homosexuals.

    It is a “fact” that libertarians are wool-dressed xenophobes.

    It is now a “fact” that conservatives hate America.

    Our language, culture and arts have been prostituted by the left to the point that none have meaning except as a means to accomplish an end.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  12. 2. has anybody ever seen gender pay gap and sasquatch in the same room?

    Comment by happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/9/2014 @ 8:18 pm

    Not since Janet Reno was a member of the Clinton administration.

    Steve57 (e3957b)

  13. Here’s a fun report on the mythical gender pay gap.

    An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women

    During the past three decades, women have made notable gains in the workplace and in pay equity, including increased labor force participation, substantial gains in educational attainment, employment growth in higher paying occupations, and significant gains in real earnings.

    …However, despite these gains the raw wage gap continues to be used in misleading ways to advance public policy agendas without fully explaining the reasons behind the gap. The purpose of this report is to identify the reasons that explain the wage gap in order to more fully inform policymakers and the public.

    …There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.

    …Research also suggests that differences not incorporated into the model due to data limitations may account for part of the remaining gap.

    What makes it especially fun is those quotes are from the portion titled:

    FOREWORD
    By the U.S. Department of Labor

    Steve57 (e3957b)

  14. lying administration caught lying…

    Film at 11!

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  15. So, when Hillary wins, she will only be paid 308K?
    Sounds like a bargain to me….

    wildbill41 (1478ad)

  16. What I don’t understand is how and why does the news coverage on stations running conservative talk shows sound just like others. The Salem Radio Network has a whole line-up of conservative talkers, yet the news coverage yesterday of Obama’s comments did nothing to challenge the basic assumption.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  17. Well, the fair way to resolve gender based paycheck inequality is to dock the salary of all WH men 12%.

    ropelight (df76c9)

  18. Because they run the AP slug, it’s Minitrue, I’m sure our Medici, from my great state, sarc, will be up to the task,

    narciso (3fec35)

  19. I was always happy when my wife brought home a bigger paycheck. My father was happy when my mother brought home a bigger paycheck. (He told me the reason why you should never beat your wife, once: “When you beat them, they sulk and they don’t work as hard.”) Men should be up in arms, too, to have their women earning more. Their mothers having more to leave them in the will; their wives helping pay for that cruise; their daughters paying off their student loans and their own rent.

    What?

    nk (dbc370)

  20. Women needs to die faster so that way we get life expectancy equality too.

    Fair is fair.

    Rodney King's Spirit (ca9e04)

  21. Where’s Demosthenes when you need him? Just because the Democrats want to make this a war on women, doesn’t mean we have to enlist. I was being only a little tongue in cheek, above. It’s not a competition. They are our women. Our mothers, our wives, our daughters. We work for them, and look out for them, and there’s nothing wrong with them making more money. Things like what Rodney King’s Spirit said are not only playing into the Democrats’s hands but just plain stupid in and of themselves.

    nk (dbc370)

  22. A lot of misogyny is really latent homosexuality, you know that, right? Like the Muslims and their all-male brothels for men.

    nk (dbc370)

  23. Mr feet asked:

    has anybody ever seen gender pay gap and sasquatch in the same room?

    Whenever Debbie Whatshername Schultz enters.

    The observant Dana (3e4784)

  24. 19.Because they run the AP slug,…
    Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 4/10/2014 @ 5:36 am

    I assume it is something like that.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  25. Women’s role on earth is clearly spelled out in the Bible and it is not to bring home the bacon.

    bob (22ac29)

  26. On Tuesday evening, the CBS Evening News sort of looked like it was going to challenge Obama’s claim, but it didn’t quiote get there. Scott pelley noted that there were other figires, like 88% or soemthing instead of 77%, and you had someone belonging to an organization that wanted to encourage women to bargain more interviewed, but they never got around to saying that economists think the whole premise here is wrong.

    Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c)

  27. 12. Comment by Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 4/9/2014 @ 9:23 pm

    It is accepted as fact that people who identify with groups associated with the “Tea Party” are racists.

    I don’t think so. I don’t think that trope is very big. What the “Tea Party” people are supposed to be are is extremely uncompromiseing, willing to bring disaster on the country by defaulting on the debt for example, and unwilling to listen to reason.

    Plus, they are against whatever may be popular in a given region.

    It is a “fact” that Republicans hate women.

    No, the “fact” is that they are eager to make abortion illegal, and maybe contraception, and only electing Democrats can prevent it.

    It is a “fact” that Republicans hate immigrants.

    The reality is it’s more complicated than that. They are stuck in a logic trap. They are not hodtile to immmigrants. They only act that way as if they were, but it is completely cold-blooded.

    If it was explained truthfully, it would be seen that their positions are more potentially reversible.

    It is a “fact” that conservatives hate homosexuals. As a matter of fact, by typing “homosexuals,” it is a “fact” that I hate homosexuals.

    This is important only to people who have been indoctrinated into political correctness, but not too many people actually have.

    And it is not that they “hate” homosexuals, but don’t agree with the full received wisdom about them.

    There is a strong attempt to make more and more thoughts regarding homosexuals unthinkable, or unsayable in the public square.

    Many disagreements are being put outside the pale, and the way this is done is by acting as if X was something outragous, hoping people will reason backwards that X must be something to be outraged about because so many people act outraged.

    It is important for the people getting outraged not to step out of character.

    So far this is mostly limited to issues concerning homosexuality, although people pushing other memes have hopes.

    It is a “fact” that libertarians are wool-dressed xenophobes.

    No, just isolationists, who would have appeased Hitler. Who sometimes talk as if they don’t care about anyone else in the world, and at other times claim that nothing bad will happen to anyone in the world if the United states does not get involved in something. No harm will happen to anyone. Some convulted argument is made that people in Syria will be better off if the United States does nothing and so on like that. Or that the United States actually (always – do they dare add that?) hurts people and does wrong, when it uses its military, etc.

    It is now a “fact” that conservatives hate America.

    I don’t recognize that one. How so?

    Our language, culture and arts have been prostituted by the left to the point that none have meaning except as a means to accomplish an end.

    They are trying to piggyback on previous reputations certain words, and culture have achieved.

    Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c)

  28. 17. Comment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 4/10/2014 @ 5:31 am

    What I don’t understand is how and why does the news coverage on stations running conservative talk shows sound just like others. The Salem Radio Network has a whole line-up of conservative talkers, yet the news coverage yesterday of Obama’s comments did nothing to challenge the basic assumption.

    I suspect they’re all drawing off the same web sites or e-mails, and that must have been missing from the talking points or whatever.

    Sammy Finkelman (ebf45c)

  29. I think the Official White House Lead Speaker needs to take a leaf from the Latin in my nym (cheerfully ripped off from the classic “Yes, Minister”):

    “If you had remained quiet, we might have thought you were clever.”

    Smock Puppet, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)

  30. I would also point out an oft-forgotten variable pointed out by Dr. Warren Farrell, decades ago:

    Men often take worse jobs than women do — they take the more dangerous jobs (which pay more because, well, they’re dangerous), the more unpleasant jobs (Lots of female applicants for those “Septic Tank Cleaner” positions, right?), the worse shifts (women prefer night and swing shifts to day jobs, don’t they?), and, in a related vein, jobs in distant, undesirable locations (Alaska, North Dakota)

    Smock Puppet, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)

  31. Oh, and another point, which fully and openly disproves the farcical claim of serious gender-based pay inequity for equal quality and quantity of work, is noted by a regular poster, morganovich, on Dr. Perry’s AEI website (but which has often been made by others, including me, though I forgot about it until he did remind me of it):

    if a woman and a man are capable of doing the exact same job in the exact same way, but the woman is less likely to ask
    for a raise in the future, then it would seem that a profit oriented employer would be incentivized to hire her instead of him.

    this would seem, all else equal, to increase the demand for female hires, which would then drive up their price until this
    arbitrage was closed.

    there is no way that the HR departments at big, sophisticated firms would miss such a clear opportunity.

    from this, the only reasonable conclusion is that there must be other factors at work.

    ‘Nuff said. Since, in most industries, labor costs are THE primary single factor in expenses, it’s clear that having to pay even 15% less for your work force would mean you have a substantial benefit over your competition. You could offer lower prices for the exact same goods/services and kick their asses in the marketplace.

    Yet this does not happen. Ergo, the rational person must conclude that such notions are somehow incorrect.

    Smock Puppet, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)

  32. you were doing fine until you said “rational person”…

    we’re talking politics. 😎

    redc1c4 (abd49e)


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