It is becoming clear that, this year, Democrats will be running – nationally, at least – on a class warfare platform. One of its key components will be the Republican “War On Women”, and one of the key issues will be the “gender gap” – i.e. that women earn only 77% of what men earn.
You might think that this fraudulent claim has been debunked enough times by enough people so that the Obama administration would be ashamed to trot it out again. But let\’s remember again that this is the Obama administration – which seems determined to elevate lying to art form status.
I just read two excellent pieces which make mincemeat of the 77% strategy. One is from the excellent Michael Barone, and the other is from the great Thomas Sowell. Let me give you a taste of both.
From Mr. Barone:
Thisisn\’t controversial stuff. As my American Enterprise Institutecolleague Christina Hoff Sommers writes in the DailyBeast,the 77 cents “does not account for differences in occupations,positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week.”
Thosefactors are acknowledged in a 2012 Bureau of Labor Statistics reportcited by AEI scholars Mark Perry and Andrew Biggs in the WallStreet Journal.It shows that (a) men tend to work longer hours than women, (b) mentend to take riskier jobs with premium pay, and (c) female collegegraduates tend to specialize in lower-paid fields than do malecollege graduates.
Asa result, the BLS concludes, women who worked 40-hour weeks earned 88percent of what similar men did. Single women who never marriedearned 96 percent of men\’s earnings.
TheDemocrats\’ problem is that sex discrimination by employers wasoutlawed by the Equal Pay Act signed by John Kennedy in 1963 – 51years ago. To make “the war on women” an issue and rally singlewomen to the polls, the Obama Democrats have had to concoct newlegislation putting new burdens on small employers and ginning upbusiness, as the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Act\’s extended statute oflimitations did, for their trial-lawyer contributors.
Suchlegislation attacks a problem very largely solved. The male-femalepay differential for those working at similar levels has been reducednearly, but not quite, to the vanishing point. Remaining differencesresult almost entirely from personal choices by women and men.
And from Mr. Sowell (please pay special attention to the part I have put in bold print):
The”war on women” political slogan is in fact a war against commonsense.
Itis a statistical fraud when Barack Obama and other politicians saythat women earn only 77 percent of what men earn – and that this isbecause of discrimination.
Itwould certainly be discrimination if women were doing the same workas men, for the same number of hours, with the same amount oftraining and experience, as well as other things being the same. Butstudy after study, over the past several decades, has shownrepeatedly that those things are not the same.
Constantlyrepeating the “77 percent” statistic does not make them the same.It simply takes advantage of many people\’s ignorance – somethingthat Barack Obama has been very good at doing on many other issues.
If you use the links I\’ve provided and read both commentaries (please do), you will find that Mr. Barone and Mr. Sowell go into even greater detail on just how completely false this “statistic” actually is.
But I think Sowell hits the nail on the head with that bold-print point. Democrats know that this is bogus. But they need to rouse the population segments which traditionally vote more Democrat than Republican. And one of them – in part because of strategies like this one – is single women.
If they can be convinced of Republicans\’ evil intent regarding wages – something that cannot be done through real facts because, a few hopeless individual aside (not necessarily all Republicans either), there is no support for women to be paid less than men.
Please do not take my word for this either. I urge you to try and find it. Name off the brand-name Republicans out there, including the most right wing of them, and search for something – anything – which shows they support the concept of women being paid less than men. You might as well look for a herd of unicorns.
On the other hand, if Obama and his people can sell this BS, it will probably get them some votes. And getting votes is all that matters, right?
