If pay disparity bothers you, do something else

I don’t argue with Cindy Glasson’s statistics in her column titled Wyoming, The Equality State. I do believe there’s a gender gap in pay between men and women.

Statistics can be misleading. I’ve heard it said, for example, that two economists can analyze the same set of data (statistics) and come to opposite conclusions. For example, Obama says the economy is doing great - the unemployment rate, 4.9 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000) is the lowest in many years. The same data shows 93 million people not working, the lowest workforce participation rate, 62.8 percent, since the 1970s (B.o.L.S .: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000).

 In this, truthfully, poor economy, millions of workers have given up trying to find a job. The irony is, the B.o.L.S. doesn't count these millions as “unemployed.” So it's natural for those with jobs (e.g. government workers) to see a rosy outlook for the economy, while the rest of the country sees the economic malaise not evident since the Carter presidency.

To quote Ms. Glasson, “I will grant you, some of the disparity comes from the field each of the sexes chooses to go into.” She then lists a few examples of jobs dominated by women, and those dominated by men.

This really is the crux of the argument about equal pay. If pay disparity really bothers someone, then that person needs to analyze what he/she is doing, or going to do, in the workforce.

There are careers that can be pursued where there is no pay disparity. Those jobs rely on salary schedules to establish how much each employee earns. The easiest example of this is the teaching profession. For example, first year teachers enter the school district at a certain pay level, regardless of gender. Each year of experience earns that person an increase in pay (usually, unless the district falls on hard times), regardless of gender.

I would guess that other, unionized, professions follow that same example – firefighters, law enforcement, mining, etc. Where the gender gap is created is in positions where talent, merit, longevity, competition, and sometimes just plain old good luck dictate the pay level of each individual employee. Often men are paid more, like for mining, than women who provide day care for that miner. When their pay is compared, which is what is done (unfairly) statistically, you can see why the gender gap occurs.

Solution? Self-employment, or choose a profession with a salary schedule.