Evidence of employers paying women 23% less than men for doing the same work is as elusive as Bigfoot sightings

Professor Mark Perry reports:

Women-owned businesses. According to this report, there are nearly 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the United States, employing nearly 8 million workers or 1 of every 7 jobs in privately held firms. It seems highly unlikely that women would engage in the highly illegal and highly unethical activity of paying other women who work for them 23% less than their male co-workers. If the implication of “77 cents on the dollar” is that women are being victimized by employers, we wouldn’t accuse women of being the victimizers of other women, would we? Not likely.

Female CEOs. According to the BLS, there are 421,000 women holding the position of “Chief Executive” of their organization. Would these female CEOs have any tolerance for an illegal company compensation policy that paid female employees 23% less than their male co-workers for the same job? Not likely.

Union Members. In 2014, there were more than 16.2 million wage and salary workers represented by unions. Unions typically negotiate for pay based on seniority, not gender, and it would be impossible that unions would violate federal law by negotiating contracts with employers that called for paying women 23% less than men for the same position with the same seniority.

Workers Paid by Commission. There are almost 1 million real estate agents in the US who are paid by commission, and 55% of them are women. There are more than half a million insurance sales agents and nearly half of them are female. When compensation for these sales agents is primarily determined by commission, and those commissions are based on some percentage of sales volume, there doesn’t seem to be much support for any claims of a 23% gender pay gap in those industries. For example, when have you ever heard that “female realtors or insurance agents are paid 77 cents on the dollar for selling the same amount of real estate or insurance as their male colleagues”? Just what I though — never.

Government Employees. There are about 22 million Americans who work for the government at the federal (2.7million), state (5 million), and local level (14 million). Illegal discrimination by paying a female government employee 23% less than a man for doing the same government job? Not likely at all. Salaries are strictly determined by job classification, experience and seniority, and are clearly not gender-based.

Waiters and Waitresses. There are about 2 million waiters and waitresses in America, and nearly 72% are female. Because their compensation is based primarily on tips, I don’t think there could be any case made that “waitresses are paid 23% less on average than waiters for doing the same job, working the same number of hours, serving the same number of customers that generated the same dollar amount of sales.” Unless, of course, customers discriminate against women and give waiters tips that are 23% higher than the tips they leave for waitresses? Not likely.

Public School Teachers and College Professors. There are nearly 5 million teachers at the elementary and secondary level, and another 1.2 million college professors. Of course, some of these educators might also be represented in “Union Members” and “Government Employees” categories above, but when have you ever heard a female elementary school teacher or female college professor claim that they were being paid 23% less than their equally-qualified male colleagues? Never.

Human Resource Professionals. There are about 236,000 human resource managers in the US, and roughly 75% of them are female. Would it be even remotely possible that any of the nearly 200,000 female HR managers are engaged in illegal activity and violating federal law by paying other women in their organizations 23% less than men for the same position? Not likely.

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