The Gender Pay Gap Closes for the Third Year in a Row

In this election year, expect Democrats -- especially Hillary Clinton -- to make "equal pay for equal work" a campaign issue in order to garner women's votes.  In doing so, also expect them to trot out the old statistic that women only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.  But, that 77 cent claim hasn't existed since before 2002 when women, for the first time, made 78 cents on the dollar.  An example of this is Hillary tweet made in 2014:

That is totally false; and of course, nearly 10,000 followers liked it ("Likes") and apparently believe it to be the truth.  At least Obama has given up on the 77 cent claim.  Now, he's using 78 cents.

Here's the truth.

In November of 2015, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published its latest report on women's pay titled "Highlights of Women's Earnings for 2014" and women reached a new milestone; making 83 cents for every dollar a man made.  This is up from 82 cents in 2013 and 81 cents in 2012.  So, neither Hillary nor Obama have an excuse for not knowing the true number.  Also understand that 83 cents is a 34% improvement in pay disparity in the last 35 years when, in 1979, women made just 62 cents on the dollar.  That's almost a one percent improvement per year.

Additionally, in Table 1 of that report, women -- before the age of 35 -- made between 89.9% and 92.3% of what men made.  The reason that is significant is the fact that, prior to that age, many women leave the workforce to raise a family.  Upon return, they have lost all the pay raises and seniority that they may have enjoyed while they where gone; and, basically, they wind up starting all over again in their chosen career fields with lower pay.

The simple truth is that Democrats prefer to lie about the size of the pay disparity between the sexes in order to enhance the victimization of women in the workforce.  It's all about politics and votes, and not the truth.  Also, the closing of the gender gap was a result of economic forces and not because of anything that the federal government did.  If it had, you know Barack Obama would be front and center taking credit for it.


References:

Highlights of Women's Earnings for 2014: http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/highlights-of-womens-earnings-in-2014.pdf

Hillary's Tweet on Women's Pay: https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton/status/453688842621431808?lang=en

The ‘Equal Pay Day’ factoid that women make 78 cents for every dollar earned by men: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/02/the-equal-pay-day-factoid-that-women-make-78-cents-for-every-dollar-earned-by-men/

President Obama gives up 77 cent wage gap statistic: https://www.whitehouse.gov/equal-pay/career 

Highlights of Women's Earnings for 2013: http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/highlights-of-womens-earnings-in-2013.pdf

Highlights of Women's Earnings for 2012: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2012.pdf

Highlights of Women's Earnings for 2002: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2002.pdf

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