Democratic politicians continue to imply that women are making less than men due to some kind of discrimination. The problem for these politicians is that the differences in pay between men and can be mostly — if not completely — explained by different experience levels or choices men and women make in their careers.
Yet these politicians continue to insist women aren’t receiving “equal pay for equal” work. At an event in Chicago, Illinois Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth made just such a claim while discussing the economy.
“Not only that, I can think of one more way to get Illinois’ economy growing: by ensuring women aren’t being paid $12,000 less than men, on average,” Duckworth said. “That’s $12,000 less that their families have to spend in our local economy.”
The problem with her statement is that there are a whole host of reasons women don’t earn as much as men that can’t be fixed by government intervention (unless the government plans to make decisions for women). Women gravitate toward lower-paying fields (proponents of the wage gap claim say this is due to a sexist society, I think women are smart enough to make their own choices) and on average work fewer hours than men.
Women also choose different majors, and are more likely to leave work for several years to raise children. None of these are bad things, yet because they result in men on average earning more than women on average, opportunists claim sexism is to blame.
It’s also a problem when politicians make this claim because people can fairly easily check whether men and women were earning the same pay while working for them. Duckworth was the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs between 2006 and 2009. Based on data from 2007 and 2008 (the only two full years she was with IDVA), one can see that in her own department, men earned on average more than women.
In 2007, women working for the IDVA earned, on average, $37,216.95, while men earned, on average, $41,314.83 — a difference of $4,097.88. This means that in 2007, women earned about 90 cents to the dollar that men earned.
In 2008, women at the IDVA earned, on average, $39,803.27, while men earned, on average, $44,761.26 — a difference of $4,957.99. So in 2008, women earned about 89 cents to the dollar that men earned.
When looking at the top 20 earners of each sex at the IDVA, things look bleaker. The top 20 highest paid women at the IDVA in 2007 earned, on average, $92,621.75, compared to the top 20 men earning, on average $109,458.41. That’s a difference of $16,836.66, or, a gap $4,000 larger than what women in all of Illinois were earning on average.
The same occurred in 2008, where the top 20 highest paid women earned, on average, $101,315.85, while the top 20 highest paid men earned, on average, $114,157.63. That’s a difference of $12,841.78.
Now for the caveats here, because there are many. The averages were based on men and women who had gender-specific names, for starters. The salaries of those with names which were gender-neutral were not counted.
The biggest caveat, however, is that Duckworth likely had little control over the salaries of those who worked for her, since these were government jobs and salaries are often set by a union. Those unions tend to pay people based on experience, not merit. Which only goes to show that considerations entirely unrelated to sex discrimination often create large pay gaps between men and women.
This comparison also leaves out the titles of employees, so two employees with the same title could be making the same or very similar amounts. The Duckworth campaign also pointed out to the Washington Examiner that with at least some titles, women were paid on average more than men. Women with the title of “pharmacist technician” in 2008 earned, on average $36,635.41, while men with the same title earned just $16,051.73.
Also, the top earner in the IDVA both years was a woman, a doctor by the name of Emelie Badillo Dumitrescu.
There were also far, far more women employed at IDVA in 2007 and 2008, suggesting women were far from being discriminated against and may have been actively sought, even over men.
Finally, we don’t know how many hours each individual worked. Some may have earned more than others because they worked overtime.
The point is, politicians like Duckworth claiming that women are paid less than men — and allowing the implication to be that the cause is discrimination — are misleading the public. Her own department paid women less than men, using the same apples-to-oranges comparison she and other Democratic politicians use when talking about men’s and women’s earnings in general. That’s why it’s disingenuous to continue making the claim.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
