By Larry Elder
Thursday, April 03, 2014
A quick way to kill debate is to accuse your political
adversary of "lying."
Still, it's hard to figure out what else propels
President Barack Obama to falsely assert, yet again, that employers rip off
female employees by paying them 23 cents less per dollar than men -- for doing
the same work.
In his last State of the Union address, Obama said:
"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. She deserves to have
a baby without sacrificing her job." See, the president begins the
statement with a fact. That is, women on the whole make 77 cents on the dollar
compared to the earnings of men, on the whole. But here, as he has other times,
Obama has added for the same work, or, as in this case, "equal pay for
equal work." This makes the statement not only flat out false, but
insultingly so.
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host, Mika Brzezinski,
echoed Obama: "Of course, women get paid 77 cents for every dollar men
earn for the same exact job, so it's something that needs to be rectified,
obviously." (Now according to the Daily Beast, at $2 million, Mika makes
half of what Scarborough makes. Time to hire a new agent perhaps, but it does
not excuse falsely telling woman that they face a 23-cent ovary discount.)
Even the federal government -- that Obama serves as chief
executive -- knows this is nonsense.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor found that, after
controlling for obvious education and job differences, the gender "wage
gap" shrank to only 95 percent. The Labor Dept. report also noted women
often make different choices than men: "A greater percentage of women than
men tend to work part-time. Part-time work tends to pay less than full-time
work. A greater percentage of women than men tend to leave the labor force for
childbirth, childcare and elder care. Some of the wage gap is explained by the
percentage of women who were not in the labor force during previous years, the
age of women, and the number of children in the home. Women, especially working
mothers, tend to value 'family friendly' workplace policies more than men. Some
of the wage gap is explained by industry and occupation, particularly, the
percentage of women who work in the industry and occupation."
Even the 5 percent "gap" has a non-exploited
explanation. The Labor report said:
"Research also suggests that differences not
incorporated into the model due to data limitations may account for part of the
remaining gap. ...(M)uch of the literature, including the Bureau of Labor
Statistics Highlights of Women's Earnings, focus on wages rather than total
compensation. Research indicates that women may value non-wage benefits more
than men do, and as a result prefer to take a greater portion of their
compensation in the form of health insurance and other fringe benefits."
What's more, three years ago USA Today found that young,
childless, unmarried working women ages 22-30 out-earn men of the same age:
"Women ages 22 to 30 with no husband and no kids earn a median $27,000 a
year, 8 percent more than comparable men in the top 366 metropolitan areas,
according to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau data. ..."
"The trend is especially apparent," said USA
Today, "in cities where minority groups make up more than half the
population. Among blacks and Hispanics, women are more than twice as likely as
men to earn college degrees." They found the largest discrepancy in
Atlanta, Ga., where woman out-earned men by 21 percent.
Again, why does Obama keep pushing this blatant untruth?
Four possibilities: stupidity, ignorance, agenda/motive or he chooses to
believe it.
Possibility No. 1: Say what you want about Obama, stupid
he's not.
Possibility No. 2: Obama lacks access to and
understanding of the information? The president of United States does not want
for research, data, information, you name it -- he and someday she, has plenty
of information.
Possibility No. 3: The falsehood advances Obama's agenda
of combating "inequality" while attacking the GOP for its "war
on women." This helps to maintain the so-called voter "gender
gap" with single female voters. Even Obama's Labor Department noted on the
first page of their 93-page report, "The (77-cent) wage gap continues to
be used in misleading ways to advance public policy agendas without fully
explaining the reasons behind the gap." Again, first page.
Possibility No. 4: Leftists, like Obama, make a conscious
decision to ignore the evidence and choose an outcome consistent with their
beliefs.
This is the kind of "cherry-picking" they once
accused the anti-science, anti-intellectual George W. Bush of doing, to make a
case for the Iraq War. Some people, goes the saying, believe what they see, and
others see what they believe.
In Obama's case, we are left with possibilities three and
four. One is Machiavellian. The other is a willful disregard of truth. Both are
offensive and harmful to the nation.
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