Politicizing the pay gap.(The Last Word)

Abortion wasn't the only rallying cry at last April's "March for Women's Lives" in Washington, D.C. When it was Senator Hillary Clinton's turn to speak, she declared: "This administration is filled with people who ... claim the pay gap between women and men is phony...." The term "pay gap" refers to the statistical observation that American women make 77 cents to every dollar earned by American men. For decades, militant feminists have maintained that the pay gap can only be explained by systemic workplace discrimination that puts less value on work done by women. But it's actually a rhetorical contrivance deployed in the service of an anti-free market agenda.

An assistant business editor of the local newspaper here in Appleton, Wisconsin, chimed in with a column that included the following remarks: "Before seeing those numbers, I really thought women and men who do the same job would receive the same pay. For example, at most businesses receptionists who are typically women--are paid less than delivery personnel or those who work in the warehouse, who are typically men. I'm sorry, but that's just not right. Is a receptionist's work any less of value than someone who works in a warehouse?"

Seeing me obvious contradiction between her premise in the first sentence and the example she used in the very next sentence, I decided to give her a call. Our brief conversation went something like this. "Why should anyone be upset about the pay gap?" I asked. She replied, "Because men and women should be treated as equals." "But the types of jobs done by women aren't always the same as those done by men," I countered. "That doesn't mean that discrimination doesn't exist," she rebutted. Pointing out her flawed reasoning, when she used an example of two different jobs to support her argument that men and women should get the same pay for the same job, I then asked, "If the receptionist wants to make more money, why doesn't she just apply for a job in the warehouse?" "Look," she said, "why don't you just write a letter for the op-ed page?" I couldn't help but recall a line from an old 1980s' tune: "Put 'em under pressure and you watch them fall apart."

In any case, who should decide how much a receptionist is worth compared to a warehouse worker--the government or the free market? And why should we believe that there would be no discrimination if we were to leave it up to the government to decide?

Any study of the pay gap and the reasons for its existence inevitably yields the following: