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>Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. “It’s a d

by xiaoma 11y ago

>Compounding the injustice, she said, is the wage gap. Federal data shows women in the United States earn about 79 cents for every dollar paid to men. “It’s a double whammy,” Menin said That statistic completely ignores experience and numbers of hours worked per week. http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-tha... "The wage gap statistic, however, doesn’t compare two similarly situated co-workers of different sexes, working in the same industry, performing the same work, for the same number of hours a day. It merely reflects the median earnings of all men and women classified as full-time workers."

omonra 11y ago
This. Any time someone trots out the '79 cent for every dollar' canard, their credibility goes to zero. Ie they are either too stupid to properly research the issue or actually intend to obfuscate it. The real wage gap is about 3% (http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/ http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/). But most of that comes down to choices made by the individuals - hours they work per week, career interruptions, etc.
ryan_j_naughton 11y ago
You are absolutely right that controlling for time worked, experience, education, etc makes virtually all of the wage gap disappear. Nonetheless, that is totally irrelevant to this topic. Regardless of the reasons, women do earn less than men on average. Since the topic here is about spending money (i.e. consumption side), then the amount of income available to a person to spend is absolutely relevant (regardless of the origin of the disparity in income). The reality is that most women are making less than men and yet goods tailored towards them do cost more.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  I'm old enough to remember that it used to be a source of humor that women spend indiscriminately on things they don't actually need. Now it's a source of handwringing and overwrought blogging. This is one of the rare cases where the old days were better.

by xiaoma 11y ago

omonra 11y ago

This. Any time someone trots out the '79 cent for every dollar' canard, their credibility goes to zero. Ie they are either too stupid to properly research the issue or actually intend to obfuscate it. The real wage gap is about 3% (http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/ http://time.com/money/4009768/wage-gap-men-women-equal-pay/). But most of that comes down to choices made by the individuals - hours they work per week, career interruptions, etc.

ryan_j_naughton 11y ago

You are absolutely right that controlling for time worked, experience, education, etc makes virtually all of the wage gap disappear. Nonetheless, that is totally irrelevant to this topic. Regardless of the reasons, women do earn less than men on average. Since the topic here is about spending money (i.e. consumption side), then the amount of income available to a person to spend is absolutely relevant (regardless of the origin of the disparity in income). The reality is that most women are making less than men and yet goods tailored towards them do cost more.

oldmanjay 11y ago
I'm old enough to remember that it used to be a source of humor that women spend indiscriminately on things they don't actually need. Now it's a source of handwringing and overwrought blogging. This is one of the rare cases where the old days were better.