Earlier this semester, I spoke to a group of 70 undergraduate women at Harvard, where I am spending the semester.
I asked this group of college women if they believed they would get paid 78 cents on the dollar compared to men just because they were women. A majority of the women raised their hands.
To have been admitted to Harvard, these young women had distinguished themselves from the smartest, most talented and most dedicated of their high school peers. This spring, Harvard admitted only 2,037 of the more than 39,041 students who applied to be part of the class of 2020—or 5.2%.
The popular notion outside of Cambridge is that Harvard undergraduates, including the young women I met with, hit the jackpot when it comes to post-college opportunities. And many doors will be open to them in the future that won’t be open to less pedigreed or credentialed job applicants.
Yet for some reason, these young women were certain that a future of gender-based discrimination awaits them in the workforce. That simply because they are women, they will pay a 22% tax with each paycheck thanks to an unfair society that favors men.
Unfortunately, the White House and many women’s groups continue to perpetuate this idea.
The White House Equal Pay website reports, “On average, full-time working women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns.” The American Association of University Women published a report this spring and asked, “Did you know that in 2014, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 79 percent of what men were paid, a gap of 21 percent?” And the National Organization for Women website states, “For full-time, year-round workers, women are paid on average only 77 percent of what men are paid… Women still are not receiving equal pay for equal work, let alone equal pay for work of equal value.”
Today, April 12th, has been deemed Equal Pay Day, or the day that symbolically marks how much longer women supposedly have to work to catch up to what men earned in the previous year. In observance of Equal Pay Day, the White House announced it will designate a new national monument for women’s equality and highlighted efforts taken by President Barack Obama’s Administration in the name of addressing the equal pay gap.
It is no wonder college women buy into this 78 cent pay gap myth.
But the White House and others who promote the myth are manipulating statistics in a way to convince women that they are the victims of systematic societal discrimination, and, therefore, stand to benefit from further government action.
Using the statistic that women make 78 cents on the dollar as evidence of rampant discrimination has been debunked over and over again.
Karin Agness Lips – Forbes – April 12, 2016.
