To call Lilly Ledbetter just a dumb blond would be to unfairly disparage dumb blonds rom Lily Ledbetter, CNN: [1]
In other words, when a woman is paid less than a man for doing the same work, does the presumptive Republican nominee support her right to fight for the equal pay she’s guaranteed under the law? That’s exactly what the bill that bears my name ensures — it simply gives workers a fair shot to make their case in court.
It’s not a hypothetical question. Women get paid just 77 cents for every dollar a man gets. That means a woman would have had to work from January 1, 2011, until this Tuesday to match what men earned in 2011 alone
Ledbetter’s seventy-seven cents on the dollar is true, but simply not relevant. Pay levels represent, among other things, education, skill levels, experience and danger. Ledbetter’s statistic make utterly no effort to account for these differences. Ledbetter might be able to cite some sex based pay disparity, but not seventy-seven cents, from Wikiipedia [2]:
In 2009 the median income of FTYR workers was $47,127 for men, compared to $36,278 for women. The female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.77, not statistically different from the 2008 ratio.[2] [3] The female-to-male earnings ratio of 0.77 means that, in 2009, female FTYR workers earned 23% less than male FTYR workers. The statistic does not take into account differences in experience, skill, occupation, education or hours worked, as long as it qualifies as full-time work [4]. However, in 2010, an economist testified to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee [5] that studies “always find that some portion of the wage gap is unexplained” even after controlling for measurable factors that are assumed to influence earnings. The unexplained portion of the wage gap is attributed to gender discrimination [6].[3] [7]:80
If Ms Ledbetter wants to live on die on statistics, let her do a Lewinsky on this one according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics [8] (PDF). In 2010, 4,192 men were killed in work place accidents, versus 355 women. More men don’t die on the job due some evil gender feminist conspiracy, but rather because men and women tend to do different jobs. Which is also a reason their pay levels differ.
This is not say that Ms Ledbetter did not suffer some discrimination, or that sex based pay discrimination is purely a product of Ledbetter’s rather demented imagination. It is to say, that Ledbetter’s seventy-seven cents figure is bogus.