Fact check: Opening night of the DNC

Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2012-09-06 00:43

Nice to see some part of the MSM calling the wage gap tripe, etc., for what it is. Nice to see some gumption from them. Article here. Excerpt:

'CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We heard a number of dubious or misleading claims on the first night of the Democratic National Convention:
...
Two advocates of equal-pay legislation said women make 77 cents for every dollar men earn. That's true on average, but the gap for women doing the same work as men is much less, and not entirely or even mostly the result of job discrimination.
...
Making a pitch for "equal pay for equal work," Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said "America's women still make just 77 cents for every dollar men earn." And the equal-pay crusader Lilly Ledbetter used the same figure and added: "[W]hen we lose 23 cents every hour, every day, every paycheck, every job, over the entire lives, what we lose cannot be measured in dollars."

But that oft-cited 77-cent statistic exaggerates the actual gap between women and men doing the same work.

As we noted back in June, the most recent Census figures show that in 2010, "the earnings of women who worked full time, year-round were 77% of that for men working full time, year-round." But that's the median (midpoint) for all women in all jobs, not for women doing "the same work" or even necessarily working the same number of hours.'

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Comments

Sorry. Not true.

In Australia - the US will be similar - full time means anything above 32 hours per week.

Analysis of Australian data from 2009 showed full time working men averaging 44 hours whilst women averaged 35. Adjusting for the difference in hours the wage gap narrows to 1.2%

Lilly Ledbetter engages in extraordinary hyperbole. In my country it might be possible to argue that women lose on average a little more than one cent every hour. I have no reason to believe the US would be any different.

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Submitted by gwallan on Thu, 2012-09-06 10:20

"nalysis of Australian data from 2009 showed full time working..."

Just so you're aware, I think you also might have bought into part of the lie, as the 77cent figure doesn't actually limit the earnings to full time work.

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Submitted by Kratch on Thu, 2012-09-06 19:15