Despite decades of progress, women still make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. A recent study estimates it will take another 47 years for women to close the wage gap with men at Fortune 500 corporate offices. Barack Obama believes the government needs to take steps to better enforce the Equal Pay Act, fight job discrimination, and improve child care options and family medical leave to give women equal footing in the workplace.
Sounds good. In about 10 years, Little Marathon Pundit will be entering the workforce, I don't want her to be shortchanged.
But does Obama practice what he preaches? A non-partisan group, LegiStorm looked into it, and Deroy Murdock of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on what they found:
Based on these calculations, Obama's 28 male staffers divided among themselves total payroll expenditures of $1,523,120. Thus, Obama's average male employee earned $54,397.
Obama's 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average.
Why this disparity? One reason may be the under-representation of women in Obama's highest-compensated ranks. Among Obama's five best-paid advisors, only one was a woman. Among his top 20, seven were women.
More:
Again, on average, Obama's female staffers earn just 83 cents for every dollar his male staffers make. This figure certainly exceeds the 77-cent threshold that Obama's campaign website condemns. However, 83 cents do not equal $1. In spite of this 17-cent gap between Obama's rhetoric and reality, he chose to chide GOP presidential contender John McCain on this issue.
What about John McCain's Senate staff. According to the same study, his female staff makes more than their male counterparts--$1.04 for every $1.00 a McCain male staffer makes.
Last week Obama made said something quite audacious about Sarah Palin, "But I've got to say, she's opposed -- like John McCain is -- to equal pay for equal work. That doesn't make much sense to me."
But if you are a female staffer working in Barack Obama's Senate office, you might want to consider applying for a job with John McCain.
Oh, John McCain and Sarah Palin support equal pay for women.
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1 comment:
Them broads should be paid ten times what any man makes. . . and then take me in as a bird in a gilded cage.
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