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Equal Pay for Equal Work
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Anonymous
| What does this mean? Does it mean that salaries for jobs traditionally taken by women (teaching, childcare, nursing, etc.) will be increased so that they are comparable to salaries for jobs traditionally held by men (electrician, plumber)? As a teacher, I hope so, but I'm wondering how this will be accomplished. |
Anonymous
|
http://www.now.org/issues/economic/factsheet.html
Facts About Pay Equity * In 2005, women's median annual earnings were only $.77 for every $1.00 earned by men. For women of color, the gap is even worse – only $.71 for African American women and $.58 for Latinas. * The General Accounting Office compiled data from the Current Population Survey regarding the ten industries that employ 71 percent of U.S. women workers and 73 percent of U.S. women managers. In seven of the ten industries examined, the pay gap between full-time male and female managers widened between 1995 and 2000. * If women received the same wages as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education and union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then these women's annual income would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. Working families would gain an astounding $200 billion in family income annually. * Pay equity in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) would increase wages for women by approximately 18 percent. * Fifty-five percent of all women work in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) whereas only 8.5 percent of all men work in these occupations. However, the men working in female-dominated jobs still receive about 20 percent more than women who work in female-dominated jobs. * Women are paid less in every occupational classification for which sufficient information is available, according to the data analysis in over 300 job classifications provided by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. * In 1963, the year of the Equal Pay Act's passage, full-time working women were paid 59 cents on average to the dollar received by men, while in 2005 women were paid 77 cents for every dollar received by men. In other words, for the last 42 years, the wage gap has only narrowed by less than half of a penny per year. |
Anonymous
| So what is the legislative response proposed by Obama? |
Anonymous
| I would assume it would be to give housewives salaries (to close up the gap some) and make it possible for all women to go to college. Of course your tax dollars will fund all of this, but it's all good, because it is truly in the name of equality. |
Anonymous
This response sounds like something on Freerepublic.com or one of those right-wing sites. I always thought the political discussions here were a little more elevated and intelligent than this. |
Anonymous
| I had hoped so too. I am honestly looking for an answer. What is the political solution proposed to end this pay gap? I have gotten a lot of flyers from the Obama campaign and want to know what will be done. |
Anonymous
| Jeff, do you know? |
Anonymous
This is an ignor-anus remark. Please. You also sound like a dumb-f*king good ol' boy. |
Anonymous
|
I assume the legislative agenda would be to pass the Ledbetter Act. This bill is a response to a recent Supreme Court case Ledbetter vs Goodyear. The bill was passed in the house, but has stalled in the Senate. The Supreme Court case hung on the court's use of a 18-month statute of limitations to dismiss Ledbetter's sex discrimination lawsuit against Goodyear. The Ledbetter Act would clarify Congress' intent in the original law and give women more time to file any lawsuits. (SCOTUS ruled that the 18 month clock starts when you are first discriminated against, not when you first learn about that discrimination, which in Ledbetter's case was many years later.)
If you go to Obama's website, there is also a mention of a Harkin sponsored bill, the Fair Pay Act, but I'm not sure what that does. |
Anonymous
|
Since GAO pay equity reports have been mentioned above, I would add that GAO also did a report on the Canadian Pay Equity experience, which would provide some insight into how Pay Equity has been legislated elsewhere in the world and how it is working. The report number is GAO/GGD-94-27BR. Another serious effort looking at pay equity in federal jobs was GAO/GGD-96-20, for those who truly want to delve into the issue. You can get these reports at www.gao.gov.
One of the bullets above said "If women received the same wages as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education and union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then these women's annual income would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half." An important factor in the regression analysis that you failed to mention was "time on the job." Fair or unfair, women are generally the ones to stay home with young children and this does affect the progression of their career pay. Sometimes women elect the "mommy track" by taking a less demanding assignment or working part-time in order to allow them time needed/wanted for family obligations. Some men are opting for this too, but traditionally women have done so more often. Sadly, sometimes they have been relegated to "mommy track" status rather then selecting it for themselves. Nonetheless, when you include time of employment, the equal pay issue nearly disappears, which again may be highly unfair, but not exactly for the reasons stated above. |
Anonymous
No, it does not mean increasing salaries for jobs traditionally held by women to be equal to the salaries of jobs traditionally held by men. As an HR professional, how I would see the applying in real life would be, if you have two individuals in your organization (or two hundred individuals in your organization) with the same job responsibilties, who have similar tenure, comparable education, etc. You need to figure out if there is a disparity in pay between employees doing the same job. So I would have a spreadsheet that shows, gender, salary, years on the job, any degree or education, other relevant info. And if Joe makes 25% more than Mary, with other factors being equal, I'd have to ask management to look at that, and we'd need to figure out why that is. Is it because we are sexist? Or is there a deeper issue that justifies the disparity? And is it an isolated problem with one or two staff, or do almost all the females make less than most of the males? We would also have to carefully look at our job classification system - are we regularly calling males doing a job "Managers" and calling females doing the same job "Administrators"? And do we use job titles as justification for a pay grade? Are we consistent in our promotion practices, and are our performance evaluations typically fair; that is, do we have a similar percentage of males getting good evals, as we do women? If not, why not? Are the women performing poorly, or is there a bias in our eval processes? This is something that most companies of any significant size are doing already, that is, analyzing their hiring, promotion, job classification, performance and pay practices to ensure they are accurate and fair. Even though conservatives may shudder about gov't regulation, if there was yet another law that we had to be sure that specifically, pay and gender were one of the many factors we monitor in the work force, it really would not be that much of an additional burden. It's just statistics, and if your stats tell you your female staff are typically paid less than your male staff, you need to ask yourself why. That's not just fair, that's good management practice. |
Anonymous
| 10:38 again. It is important to understand the difference between "Equal Pay for Equal Work" which is already protected by federal law and "Pay Equity" which refers to equal pay for work of equal value ... a very different thing. For example, certain occupations are traditionally selected more often by women (secretary for example) or by men (janitor for example). Janitors make more money than secretaries, on average. Is this fair? How does one compare different occupations to determine if they are of equal value? It is a subjective decision, even when using an apparently objective yardstick (a classification system). One job might require high levels of computer skills, multi-tasking, etc. while the other might require working undesirable hours, heavy lifting, exposure to hazardous materials, etc. The Canada experience has been one of endless court cases to adjudicate the answers to these subjective questions. |
Anonymous
| In response to 10:49, the problem with looking at statistics (a clearly objective process) is that the inputs are often subjective. Certainly job performance would be an input, but human beings assign these ratings and even with the most well-written, benchmarked PA system, subjectivity is all around us! Nonetheless, I certainly support the process of reviewing pay results and looking for patterns that suggest a problem. When blatant discrimination is occurring, it is not too hard to identify if an employer is honestly looking for it. |
Anonymous
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10:59, yes you are right, subjectivity will always be a problem. As humans, we can only do the best we can do, and TRY to find ways to analyze what is admittedly hard to pin down as an exact science - job performance.
Tracking the data the way I described - what is the degree, a four year or an associates? How many years on the job? And what does the aggregate data tell you - is there a vast difference between the overall male population and the female population - is at least a beginning, a way to start to ask insightful questions about whether we are leveraging all our workers, and paying them fairly. NOT trying to analyze the stats allows subjectivity to reign unchallenged. |
Anonymous
Odd because so many of the discussions are about what the government should be doing for the people. Usually it isn't what we should be doing for each other. These are often one sided, closed minded "discussions" on here. Women are less likely to have a college degree and are much more likely to leave or downgrade their positions when they have children. Like it or not as women we are usually the primary caregivers, and we are usually the ones who will sacrifice a career for our children. This accounts for a large part of the wage gap. I earn zero dollars for each dollar my husband makes. I help contribute to the lower earnings of women, and I don't feel guilty about it, and I have actually considered being a school lunch lady so I could have the same hours as my children when they go to school. |