It’s the Free Market, Honey

In a Denver Post opinion piece this AM we’ve got two highly credentialed women lamenting the inequities of compensation in the market place. One is the president of “Business & Professional Women/USA”, the other is president of “Business & Professional Women/Colorado”. The rant relates to the fact that women get paid less than men and it just isn’t fair. No, they whine, it needs government intervention to insure that women who work here get paid the same as men who work there. At least, they suggest, governments that employ members of both genders should insure statistical equality. There oughta be a law!

"Equal Pay for Equal Work?"

Bolster an argument with numbers and you immediately achieve credibility. It doesn’t matter that the numbers might be irrelevant to the issue at hand, the great unwashed aren’t sophisticated enough to notice. For example, the two presidents cite the stat that “for every dollar a man is paid, a woman gets only 76 cents. Over the course of a lifetime, the average American woman gets shortchanged $523,000.” But taking generic wage stats by gender without considering the specifics of the job is ludicrous. I’m not the president of Harvard, so I can suggest that there are differences between men and women. Women bear children and often experience breaks in their careers. Women have spouses and in our society, often follow their husbands as they proceed along a career path, causing setbacks in their own careers. Women (and I only offer anecdotal evidence here) seem to take a few days off of work more than men.

Sure, there is still prejudice in business. Yes, there are instances of “glass ceilings” being in place. But, that isn’t corrected by legislation. It changes with changes in society and with demonstration of capability and qualification. We’ve got women in government at the highest levels—federal, state and local. We’ve got women in the military, even in combat billets such as tactical fighter pilots—and they are increasingly accepted, respected and promoted based on their performance. No pay inequity there.

Yet, the whiners want Colorado to follow in the footsteps of the People’s Republic of Minnesota which decided that the average of men’s and women’s wages must be equal. Yes, delivery van drivers (mostly male) and clerk-typists (mostly female) must be synched. Disregard that the van driver is outside in all weather, lifting packages, fighting traffic, day and night; while the clerk-typist is in air-conditioned, brightly-lighted comfort adjacent to the water-cooler and just down the hall from the lunch room hauling those neatly typed letters from in-basket to out. The jobs aren’t parallel!

Nurses in Minnesota got 12% less than “senior corrections agents” according to the lamentation of the writers—of course, the corrections officers needed to bear arms, shackle prisoners, maintain security and be prepared to defend themselves from some of the hardest criminals, while the nurses dealt with a largely passive but generally appreciative clientele. The jobs aren’t parallel!

The solution these two twits offer is a veritable litany of liberal expectation:

a) Strengthen “affirmative action” regarding job and education opportunities—does that sound like quotas or special treatment to you?

b) “Women should stand up for equal pay”….”and if necessary file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Opportunities Commission or Colorado Commission on Human Rights.” Mommy, mommy, the big, bad boys won’t give me what I’m worth. Did we forget about the free market concept of supply/demand and the value of labor?

c) “Businesses should act responsibly” and audit themselves—can I predict that the audit would find them delinquent in their fairness? Don’t businesses act responsibly when market forces determine what they pay for labor? Aren’t they responsible enough when their decisions are based on that old motivator, profit?

d) The pair of presidents believes in “voluntary reform” but suggest that there might be a need for a “Paycheck Fairness” or “Fair Pay Act”—isn’t a fair deal what a willing buyer and a willing seller agree to? Legal penalties are called for by these paragons of feminine business sense.

A favorite question for my political science students during the block on economic policy was “what determines the minimum wage?” Inevitably they would respond with relationships to poverty levels, cost of raising a family of four, or cost of living estimates. That, of course is what the believers in the liberal agenda have instilled in the population. That is also patently absurd.

The minimum wage is determined by the value of your labor. Neurosurgeons get paid a lot because their training, skill and profession are irreplaceable. When you need one, nothing else will do. Similarly burger-flippers get paid little, because there are a lot of unskilled folks willing to do the job, at least for a short period of life. If one is willing to accept the wage, you can work. If not, step aside so the individual behind you can take the job.

If there is a justification for women at large getting paid less than men it isn’t prejudice it is the value of their labor in a free-market economy. Where the labor is of high value, there are ample stats to show that women get equal pay for truly equal work. When the presidents of “Business & Professional Women” get the basics of economics down, they will be able to better represent their constituencies.