Obama's newest goal- equal pay for women (1 Viewer)

[Scoresman]

What is the argument used to defend paying women less for the exact same work?

I suspect it's similar to the anti-gay stance in that the only argument is rooted in either bigotry or religion.

Who's making the argument that women should be paid less for the exact same work?

Wasn't implying anybody here was.

So who do you think is making that argument?

Well, if this is supposedly going to Congress to vote, then unless you think it will unanimously pass, then I'm talking about the nay voters. Just curious if there's an official position on the nay side that isn't simply sexism.

I imagine there's a lot more to the proposed bill than what you've written here. There's also the issue of defining "equal work", especially if we allow "work" to include such things as qualifications, education, experience, productivity, etc. Much of those things are also subjective, so there's no good way to define "equal" in legislation. Depending on the actual text of the bill, there could be all sorts of good reasons to oppose it.

I agree, my original question was more in the philosophical sense. Are there people out there who think that, all things being equal, men deserve more pay than women, and why do they think that way?

 

[Mr. Cross]

Everybody should be paid the same no matter what their job. It isn't right that a CEO makes 50 million a year while the workers make $8 an hour. A law should be passed that makes everybody be paid the same per hour.

Isnt that what the whole income inequality crowd believes? Trash Collectors pay = Nuerosurgeon pay?

The CEO does not work millions of times harder. This is the richest country in the world but people are starving and do not have shelter. Equal pay for all. There is plenty to go around.

All sarcasm aside, and whatever your political ideology is, I'd hope that we can agree that our nation, considering its abundant wealth, knowledge and resources, has and continues to do a terrible job in meeting the needs of a large portion of its populace - and that the gap between wealthy and poor is a tremendous issue.

Now, how you plan to reverse that reality we can debate, but hopefully the fact that we have so much of the wealthiest people in the nation but also the largest per capita rate of imprisonment, and then you look at the social-economic factors of who ends up there, well... we really should do a lot better.

No sarcasm.

 

[RCon]

What is the argument used to defend paying women less for the exact same work?

I suspect it's similar to the anti-gay stance in that the only argument is rooted in either bigotry or religion.

Who's making the argument that women should be paid less for the exact same work?

Wasn't implying anybody here was.

So who do you think is making that argument?

Well, if this is supposedly going to Congress to vote, then unless you think it will unanimously pass, then I'm talking about the nay voters. Just curious if there's an official position on the nay side that isn't simply sexism.

I imagine there's a lot more to the proposed bill than what you've written here. There's also the issue of defining "equal work", especially if we allow "work" to include such things as qualifications, education, experience, productivity, etc. Much of those things are also subjective, so there's no good way to define "equal" in legislation. Depending on the actual text of the bill, there could be all sorts of good reasons to oppose it.

I agree, my original question was more in the philosophical sense. Are there people out there who think that, all things being equal, men deserve more pay than women, and why do they think that way?

I don't know if there are people out there who think that, which is why I asked you who was making that argument. If they exist, perhaps we can identify them, and then maybe we can figure out why they're making such an argument.

 

[Da Guru]

Today, President Obama noted that women, on average, receive .77 cents for every dollar that men receive for doing the exact same jobs. He said that women should not be punished for taking time off when they are pregnant. He said, "We're no longer living in an episode of Mad Men; it's time to end this embarrassment.". Obama challenged Congress to pass a new Equal Pay law.

Agree or disagree?

The thing I don`t agree with is these are not really Obamas goals. They are just things flung on his desk from Nancy Pelosi or someone.

 

[jon_mx]

Women make a lot more money off of prostitution and stripping than men. Men deserve equal pay in these fields!

 

[D-Day]

Oh, the "all things being equal" argument. Yet this is a fallacy, ALL things are never equal. Some things benefit men. Some things benefit women. Heck, you could have identical twins, same education and experience get different pay/benefits than the other for some reason.

For those who think that a CEO's pay should be closer than the workers, WHY? If the CEO makes less, does that mean the janitor's job will be paid more? Does what the 1% make/have REALLY affect your pay or your possessions? Did A-Rod's $250+ million cause any MLB's players pay go down? Or did his salary help lift the pay of marginal players.

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

This thread reminds me of our Commie founding fathers...

 

[Drunken Cowboy]

He said that women should not be punished for taking time off when they are pregnant.

This is the part of Obama's speech that is interesting. (The 77% thing is just stupid and he should be called out on it.)

I think it might be fairer if women didn't face negative repercussions to their income for taking pregnancy-related time off. But I can't think of any good legislative solutions to the problem.

Requiring employers to pay women as if they never got pregnant doesn't really fix things. It doesn't help women who are self-employed, for example. If my neighbor and I are both self-employed women who play guitar at restaurants/bars for our income, how is the government going to ensure that I still make as much as my neighbor when I take a few months off from performing and she doesn't? Which restaurants/bars that I don't perform at are supposed to pay me?

Even for women who are employed by employers other than themselves, requiring employers to pay pregnant women for their time off may not be such a good idea. It will make women less employable. It's essentially making employers pay more per hour of work for women of childbearing age than for other employees, thus making other employees comparatively more attractive in the job market. That's not good for young women's employment prospects.

The best solution (which also comes up in discussions of minimum wage) may be to shift the burden from the employer to the government (i.e., to taxpayers in general). Allow the employer to give the pregnant woman unpaid time off, but have the government write her a check to cover any lost salary. That's just as good from a pregnant woman's perspective, and it removes some of the disincentive employers would otherwise have to hire women of childbearing age. (There's still the problem that a woman will miss out on work experience during her pregnancy leave, and that she'll have to be replaced temporarily, which involves transaction costs to the employer.)

But that last solution makes it look like the government is paying women to have babies, and moreover, it's paying high-income women a lot more than it's paying low-income women. Why would it do that? Are rich white babies worth more than poor black babies? There may be issues there . . .

In Sweden both men and women are guaranteed paid time off following birth of a child. It works very well there.

 

[Drunken Cowboy]

What is the argument used to defend paying women less for the exact same work?

I suspect it's similar to the anti-gay stance in that the only argument is rooted in either bigotry or religion.

Who's making the argument that women should be paid less for the exact same work?

Wasn't implying anybody here was.

So who do you think is making that argument?

Well, if this is supposedly going to Congress to vote, then unless you think it will unanimously pass, then I'm talking about the nay voters. Just curious if there's an official position on the nay side that isn't simply sexism.

I imagine there's a lot more to the proposed bill than what you've written here. There's also the issue of defining "equal work", especially if we allow "work" to include such things as qualifications, education, experience, productivity, etc. Much of those things are also subjective, so there's no good way to define "equal" in legislation. Depending on the actual text of the bill, there could be all sorts of good reasons to oppose it.

I agree, my original question was more in the philosophical sense. Are there people out there who think that, all things being equal, men deserve more pay than women, and why do they think that way?

I don't know if there are people out there who think that, which is why I asked you who was making that argument. If they exist, perhaps we can identify them, and then maybe we can figure out why they're making such an argument.

You could read this thread and find somebody 7 posts in.

 

[RCon]

What is the argument used to defend paying women less for the exact same work?

I suspect it's similar to the anti-gay stance in that the only argument is rooted in either bigotry or religion.

Who's making the argument that women should be paid less for the exact same work?

Wasn't implying anybody here was.

So who do you think is making that argument?

Well, if this is supposedly going to Congress to vote, then unless you think it will unanimously pass, then I'm talking about the nay voters. Just curious if there's an official position on the nay side that isn't simply sexism.

I imagine there's a lot more to the proposed bill than what you've written here. There's also the issue of defining "equal work", especially if we allow "work" to include such things as qualifications, education, experience, productivity, etc. Much of those things are also subjective, so there's no good way to define "equal" in legislation. Depending on the actual text of the bill, there could be all sorts of good reasons to oppose it.

I agree, my original question was more in the philosophical sense. Are there people out there who think that, all things being equal, men deserve more pay than women, and why do they think that way?

I don't know if there are people out there who think that, which is why I asked you who was making that argument. If they exist, perhaps we can identify them, and then maybe we can figure out why they're making such an argument.

You could read this thread and find somebody 7 posts in.

He's suggesting in that post that men perform better, thus saying that all things are not equal.

 

[bigbottom]

Today, President Obama noted that women, on average, receive .77 cents for every dollar that men receive for doing the exact same jobs. He said that women should not be punished for taking time off when they are pregnant. He said, "We're no longer living in an episode of Mad Men; it's time to end this embarrassment.". Obama challenged Congress to pass a new Equal Pay law.

Agree or disagree?

There already is an Equal Pay law. It's called the Equal Pay Act and it was originally passed in 1963. From the Act, as amended:

(1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.

 

[bigbottom]

Today, President Obama noted that women, on average, receive .77 cents for every dollar that men receive for doing the exact same jobs. He said that women should not be punished for taking time off when they are pregnant. He said, "We're no longer living in an episode of Mad Men; it's time to end this embarrassment.". Obama challenged Congress to pass a new Equal Pay law.

Agree or disagree?

There already is an Equal Pay law. It's called the Equal Pay Act and it was originally passed in 1963. From the Act, as amended:

(1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.

Additionally, to the extent that Obama is proposing a law that provides women with paid maternity leave (I didn't hear his comments or proposal), there may be policy reasons to support the proposed legislation, but such a law would, by definition, be an Unequal Pay law.

 

[jon_mx]

Today, President Obama noted that women, on average, receive .77 cents for every dollar that men receive for doing the exact same jobs. He said that women should not be punished for taking time off when they are pregnant. He said, "We're no longer living in an episode of Mad Men; it's time to end this embarrassment.". Obama challenged Congress to pass a new Equal Pay law.

Agree or disagree?

There already is an Equal Pay law. It's called the Equal Pay Act and it was originally passed in 1963. From the Act, as amended:

(1) No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.

But Obama may want a quota system or something like Title 10 where you have to demonstrate equal pay.

 

[Sand]

More real world data to chew on. Not surprisingly the choice by women to work less hours to rear kids results in lower pay. Once that variable is controlled for the pay gap just about vanishes.