Pay Equity And Women In Lowest Level Jobs; Minimum Wage And The GOP

Pay Equity, Minimum Wage and the woman worker…… John F. Kennedy had foresight on inequity for women in the workplace.

“[W]e have by no means done enough to strengthen family life and at the same time encourage women to make their full contribution as citizens. If our nation is to be successful in the critical period ahead, we must rely upon the skills and devotion of all our people. … It is appropriate at this time … to review recent accomplishments, and to acknowledge frankly the further steps that must be taken. This is a task for the entire nation.”

504 – Statement by the President on the Establishment of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.
December 14, 1961
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Ah, the beauty of reflection to a time when ideology and working towards a great future was like a rose budding to blossom and casting a “hopeful” shadow across the nation. Hopeful regarding…..

The Status of Women
    Civil Rights: “Out of Jim Crow”
       Concern for the poor and underprivileged
           The hope of Fair Pay for women and minorities
               Eventual War that would unleash a societal evolution
                   Booming manufacturing
                        Off-shoring jobs wasn’t on the radar screen
                             The Kochs did not have a grip on the GOP

And, all before the nation turned to Richard Nixon and the new GOP and 1970s neo-conservative ideology. The beautiful blossoming rose prematurely withered with the eventual election of Ronald Reagan. The Father of Modern Conservatism administered with regressive conservative ideology and policy to reverse growing social change. Reagan and his party initiated federal policy that led to (protective) moats for US industrialist. Ultimately, his economic policies fueled development of a US “income caste system.”

Since the Reagan Era, the nation has experienced Civil and Human Rights paradigms akin to that of pre-1960s social Dark Ages. Paradigms that have metastasized with the election of Barack Obama to a social phenomenon one can only call a rebirth of unabashed racism. Racism actually practiced and broadcast by well-viewed media (Fox News) and manifest like a completely soaked sponge around the fringe of the GOP (and the libertarian movement). The socially deprived seem to use media (eg., talk radio and Fox News) to feed from the sponge as social oppression permeates to the core of US conservative ideology. The permeating sponge represents the growth of “isms” that at one time was moved to the “back-40” of the US social landscape. Did I mention pay equity, the Minimum Wage and women?

People who practice or perpetrate “isms” carry then around in bundles. You will not find a racist who is free of homophobia. You will only rarely find a person suffering from homophobia who is free of the ravages of sexism. I further posit, you will not find a person infested with sexism who will rally around or champion fair and equal pay for women. Maybe less pronounced, but women who live in such environments know it is a reality.

Sexism has become such a worldwide norm women’s pay equity issues in industrialized nations are completely ignored. In the United States, millions ignore the male to female pay ratio of women earning $.77 for every dollar earned by her male cohorts. Women are also guilty complacency in acceptance of pay inequity.  When women in the millions do themselves great harm when they vote for a party that cares as much about pay-equity as it cares about climate issues. Indifferent women literally enable one of US societies’ most virulent “isms.” Pay inequality with women occupying the majority of lower level jobs, and receiving the lowest levels of pay, is the epitome of sexism.

Read more after the break below

How is it possible the following is so easy to ignore? Let’s start with the perfect high-end example: the woman Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In the summer of 2013, Bloomberg reviewed the S&P 500 top executives and found a 17% disparity in women CEO Pay and average CEO pay.  The following table shows a mixed bag, but the message is clear. 

If industrialist and Wall Street executives pay women at the highest levels moderately less than her male counterparts, do you think those power-brokers have concern for lower end employees?  The question is rhetorical, we know what they do and the evidence is easy to locate.

First, know that women occupy the majority of lower paid jobs.  A look back 50 years.

Women comprise 53% of the workforce. Seventy per cent of mothers work to support a family.   Since the mid 1960s, the income disparity (gap) has kept pace with increases in pay among various race and gender demographic groups. Progress in reducing the gap doe snot exist; actually the gap has every so slightly widened. The following chart unfortunately ends in 2008, but we have major suspicion the trend lines continue as delineated in the chart. Fabulous Broke Dot Com 

Last summer the White House published a report from a National Equal Pay Task Force. 

The LA Times June 13, 2013

The conclusion? The top professions among women haven’t changed all that much over the last half century. Women are still more likely than men to work minimum-wage or low-pay service jobs. 

In 1960, the top five leading occupations for women were private household workers, secretaries, sales clerks, elementary school teachers and bookkeepers. 

In 2010, the leading categories haven’t changed much. The top five are secretaries, nurses, elementary and high school teachers, cashiers and retail clerks. 

The report found male-dominated jobs that do not require higher education still often pay more than the kinds of jobs mostly taken up by women.

A National Equal Pay Task Force table shows clear evidence of job level regression (over the past 30 years) and it shows women occupy many lower paying jobs.

The Obama Administration has nudged pay disparity among men and actual women closer to equity, but a stubborn gap remains.

The Society of Human Resources Management June 13, 2013

Women’s Pay Still Lags Behind Men’s Excerpt The day the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women earned, on average, 59 cents for every dollar a man earned. “Today it’s about 77 cents,” President Obama said on June 10, 2013, in the East Room of the White House. “So, it was 59 and now it’s 77 cents. It’s even less, by the way, if you’re an African-American or a Latina.”  The president pressed for Congress to “step up and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, so women have better tools to fight for equal pay for equal work.”  Occupational Segregation The pay disparity is due, in part, to women continuing to fill lower-paying jobs because of “occupational segregation.” The report listed the top 10 occupations women fill:  Secretaries and administrative assistants. Professional nurses. Elementary- and middle-school teachers. Cashiers. Retail salespersons. Nursing, psychiatric and home health aides. Waitresses. First-line supervisors and managers of retail salespersons. Customer-service representatives. Maids.  Male-dominated professions requiring a high school diploma or a bachelor’s degree or higher continue to pay more than fields with a high concentration of women.  For example, the three most common male-dominated jobs requiring a high school diploma—brick mason, tool and die maker, and plumber—provide average salaries of $45,410, $39,910 and $46,660, respectively. By contrast, the top three female-dominated jobs requiring a high school diploma—secretary, child care worker and hairdresser—offer average salaries of $34,660, $19,300 and $22,500, respectively.  Occupations are segregated by gender in professions requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher, the report added, and the male-dominated jobs are paid more.  The three most common male-dominated jobs requiring a higher-education degree—mechanical engineer, computer-control programmer and operator, and aerospace engineer—provide average salaries of $78,160, $71,380 and $97,480, respectively.  The top female-dominated professions requiring a higher-education degree—speech-language pathologist, occupational therapist and dietitian—provide average salaries of $66,920, $72,320 and $53,250, respectively.  Read more linked above

Since women occupy more lower paying jobs than men, even when the male has less education, isn’t that a form of disparate impact? Disparate impact is against federal Fair Employment Law. Raising the Minimum wage could seriously offset the $.77 to $1.00 female/male pay ratio.

If the GOP is against raising the Minimum Wage, the GOP accepts unequal pay with the reality of disparate impact on women. Some prefer use of softer language, but we call that a “War on Women.”

The war is also perpetrated against you and me. 

We shouldn’t be forced to live and experience the reality of the graphic just above. Your daughter, wife, aunt or Grandmother shouldn’t have to labor in lowering paying jobs while being paid a wage below the poverty level. They work in jobs with male co-workers possibly earning more for doing the same job. Many women work more than one job to simply help make ends meet.   

If 70 plus percent of survey respondents believe the Minimum Wage should be higher than $7.25 per hour and we are faced with what you have just read, how can anyone in the GOP say there is no “war on women” from the Right. 

Why is the party on the Right so out of touch with the wishes of the American people.