Obama Renews Call For Paycheck Fairness Act

by Hans Bader on February 13, 2013 · 0 comments

in Economy, Employment, Labor, Legal, Regulation

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama renewed his call for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would make it harder for employers to rely on certain merit-based factors “other than sex” in setting employee pay. Two federal laws, the Equal Pay Act, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, already ban gender-based pay discrimination. Appealing to low-information voters who may not be aware of these laws, Obama declared, “I ask this Congress to declare that women should earn a living equal to their efforts, and finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this year.” The administration’s back-up document for this statement asserted that ‘on average women generally make 23 cents on the dollar less than men.’” But that figure is misleading, because women generally aren’t paid less for the same job, or working the same number of hours.

As The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler notes, government data shows women work fewer hours than men, which explains much of the apparent pay gap: “since women in general work fewer hours than men in a year, the statistics used by the White House may be less reliable for examining the key focus of the legislation — wage discrimination.” I discuss some other unfounded claims made in support of the Paycheck Fairness Act at this link.  As Steve Tobak noted at CBS News,…To Read More….