Ha – comparable worth? I can’t imagine ever enforcing that, let alone calculating it.

Thanks for taking the time to leave these comments and challenge what you see as flaws in how I’ve presented my thoughts. I know that it’s helpful.

My last words on this subject …

I think NOW’s promulgation of its 77-cent figure as proof of pay discrimination is misleading. I also think the Obama sub-dollar figure as proof of pay discrimination is misleading. However, if one accepts the 77-cent figure as proof of discrimination, one must also accept the Obama figure as proof of discrimination, assuming one is logically consistent.

You’ve cited NOW’s 77-cent figure in at least two postings. If you wish to be consistent, I would suggest that you would have to accept the Obama sub-dollar figure as proof of discrimination. If you reject the Obama calculation, I would suggest that you would have to reject the NOW calculation.

As to the issue of “pay equity,” if we’re talking about ensuring equal pay for equal work regardless of workers’ races/sexes, problems exist and I’m all for correcting them. If by “pay equity” we’re talking about “comparable worth,” I’m adamantly against it. I believe comparable worth regulations would create serious labor market distortions and cause significant damage to employees, employers and the economy.

1. you wrote: “In the context of a response to my original post, what was your point in saying “CNS is a biased source?” Wasn’t that statement intended to dismiss the CNS conclusion? If not, what was the intended implication?”

It was to give it context as being from a biased source – NOW I believe is more familiar to readers who would know its agenda than CNS so that’s why I didn’t say anything about NOW before.

Your #2: ok.

Your #3: Anon – the bottom line is – you here trying to keep me in what your opinion would be “honest” or are you looking to argue that there is or is not a problem w/pay equity? Because anyway you slice it, there’s inequality and this is like pretending that there’s no racism or sexism in this country. All of that exists – this slicing and dicing is crazy.

2.

When you say “Article” you mean the link in the very first sentence? Yeah, that’s from the campaign but I did that for the readers – not for me. If you think that’s confusing, ok – I’ll think about re-framing how I set that up in subsequent posts – good point – I can just say here’s what the campaign says.

Is that what you mean?

As for this, “helped me come in touch very directly with what I value and who I think can, in my assessment do the best toward those values, in conjunction with a federal gov’t.” I’m not sure why an camp lit would use it – eek. I’m talking about how the process of writing all these reasons has helped me. I guess it wasn’t clear for you.

I didn’t give you back up due to time I’m sorry but I read CNS regularly and I find it to be a very biased resource- that’s my opinion. I do not assume it’s incorrect – I assume it has a specific slant of point it embraces and those it tends to reject.

I’m left scratching my head. In the context of a response to my original post, what was your point in saying “CNS is a biased source?” Wasn’t that statement intended to dismiss the CNS conclusion? If not, what was the intended implication?

“2) I didn’t say NOW was biased. I suggested NOW’s methodology was inaccurate/misleading.”

I know you didn’t – I did – I say that again for similar reasons re: CNS – NOW has an agenda – info that comes from NOW will support that agenda. That’s bias. It doesn’t make it inaccurate. I didn’t get that you were saying the NOW methodology is inaccurate – do you mean it’s flawed??

Scratch “inaccurate”–”misleading” is a better word. NOW distributes its 77-cent figure so that those who see/hear the number will conclude that women are not paid the same as men for the same work. The Census data from which the 77-cent number is derived is insufficient to support that conclusion.

“3) I think you’re being inconsistent in rejecting the LegiStorm and CNSNews computations, but accepting the NOW computation. The computations seem to use the same basic methodology.”

I didn’t reject LegiStorm computations – they don’t offer computations – I linked to their disclaimer about that. The NOW computation wasn’t something I looked for in LegiStorm and the CNS computations weren’t about the same thing as the NOW computation. I’m not sure why you’re mixing and matching.

You are right concerning LegiStorm; my apologies. LegiStorm was referencing a column by Deroy Murdock.

As to Murdock, he simply computed the average salary for males and the average salary for females on Sen. Obama’s staff. Comparing those averages, he found that female staffers earned 83 cents for every dollar that male staffers earned. The CNS author also computed averages and came up with a figure of 78 cents for females for every dollar for males. (I’m guessing the difference arises from differing treatment of people who didn’t work the full half-year on which calculations are based.) NOW derived its 77-cent figure by comparing Census figures for the average salaries of all full-time female and male workers without taking job title into consideration.

The methodologies of Murdock, CNS and NOW for computing the pay ratios appear to be nearly identical. (Murdock and CNS were doing their computations for a population different from that of NOW, but the methodologies were very similar.) I therefore do not believe I’m “mixing and matching.”

If one accepts NOW’s 77-cent figure as valid (and one wishes to be consistent), then one should also accept as valid a sub-dollar figure for Sen. Obama’s staffers. If NOW’s 77-cent figure is evidence of pay discrimination, then one should draw the same conclusion for Sen. Obama.

Its very unlikely that McCain is paying his female staffers more than Obama’s since McCain is paying his overall staff less on average than Obama.

However the titles across staff of the senators are not similar and salaries include interns as well, you would have to drill down to see it there is gender or even racial inequities.

You cannot trust any references to statistics they are all biased, you would have to have the real data.

From what I see McCain’s office is more efficient or it has more interns? They have a larger staff and less expenses.

as far as the “helped me come in touch very directly with what I value and who I think can, in my assessment do the best toward those values, in conjunction with a federal gov’t.” did that come from a campaign brochure because it makes zero sense based on the issue we are discussing.

You wrote:

“1) You’re making an ad hominem argument re CNSNews.com. CNSNews presented its methodology, which one may argue is correct or incorrect. I assume that you would argue it’s incorrect.”

I didn’t give you back up due to time I’m sorry but I read CNS regularly and I find it to be a very biased resource- that’s my opinion. I do not assume it’s incorrect – I assume it has a specific slant of point it embraces and those it tends to reject.

You wrote:

“2) I didn’t say NOW was biased. I suggested NOW’s methodology was inaccurate/misleading.”

I know you didn’t – I did – I say that again for similar reasons re: CNS – NOW has an agenda – info that comes from NOW will support that agenda. That’s bias. It doesn’t make it inaccurate. I didn’t get that you were saying the NOW methodology is inaccurate – do you mean it’s flawed??

You wrote:

“3) I think you’re being inconsistent in rejecting the LegiStorm and CNSNews computations, but accepting the NOW computation. The computations seem to use the same basic methodology.”

I didn’t reject LegiStorm computations – they don’t offer computations – I linked to their disclaimer about that. The NOW computation wasn’t something I looked for in LegiStorm and the CNS computations weren’t about the same thing as the NOW computation. I’m not sure why you’re mixing and matching.