No, the Difference in Wages Is Not a Myth.
This isEqual Pay Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the pay gap. It has narrowed since the 60s, but progress remains to be made, especially given that skeptics still believe the gap does not exist.
The gap has narrowed slightly since 1963, when the Equal Pay Act was passed . But women, especially those of color , still earn less than men. In 2016, women were paid 22% less than men after control over race, ethnicity, education, experience, and location. This is an unpleasant problem, which is further frustrated by the fact that many people believe that all of this is unrealistic.
However, I tried to understand the skeptic’s point of view. And judging from the myth-busting articles I’ve read ( like this one), the main problem is that pay gap deniers oversimplify the problem and then blame equal pay advocates for oversimplifying it. For example, here’s one flawed, simplistic look at this :
However, for some reason, these young women felt confident that the future of gender discrimination lay in the workforce. Just because they are women, they will pay 22% tax on every salary thanks to an unjust society that favors men.
I don’t know if this is the straw man’s argument or if the author sincerely doesn’t understand the essence of the problem. In the same post, the author acknowledges that factors such as “education, years of experience and hours worked” affect earnings. Um, yes! We understand that the difference in wages is not so simple. However, in many cases, even if you adjust for these factors , the numbers still show a gap.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has decided to respond to a couple of the most common criticisms of the wage gap by providing even more data. They visualized this in the picture below (and our friends at Jezebel have even more information here). Check out the EPI infographic below, then skip to full post for more details .
Can’t explain the difference in pay between men and women | Institute for Economic Policy