http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/29/216301/how-does-obama-stack-up-on-womens.html#emlnl=Afternoon_Newsletter
NOTE FROM E-PAL JHA:
The left-of-center McClatchy news service makes another point on the false
generalization brought up by Obama on sex discrimination in pay….
It is also true that in the pre-marriage and pre-child-rearing age of their
20’s, women across all jobs, using the same broad generalization used by Obama ,
make more than men of that age…
JHA
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama calls it “wrong” and an “embarrassment” that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, saying women deserve equal pay for equal work.
“At a time when women make up about half of the workforce, but still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns – we’ve got to finish the job and give women the tools they need to fight for equal pay,” Obama said Wednesday in Maryland, calling for an end to “workplace policies that belong in a ‘Mad Men’ episode.” His remarks echoed what he said the night before in his State of the Union address, and which he’s said before, always to applause.
But a McClatchy review of White House salaries shows that when the same calculations that produced the 77 cents is applied to the White House, the average female pay at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is less than the average male pay. When counted the same way that produced the 77-cent figure, the analysis found, women overall at the White House make 91 cents for every dollar men make. That’s an average salary of $84,082 for men and $76,516 for women.
Asked about its own payroll, the White House said Wednesday that it should be measured by how it pays men and women in the same jobs, but not the kind of broad brush that compares overall male and female pay.
White House aides said that overwhelmingly, the president’s employees with the same position make the same money: all press assistants make $42,000 regardless of gender; most presidential assistants, including Press Secretary Jay Carney and Lisa Monaco, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, make $172,200.