NCPE serves as a national clearinghouse on information about pay equity, and its Executive Director Susan Bianchi-Sand makes frequent public presentations to draw attention to the earnings gap that exists between men and women. Outlining its view that women and minorities face severe discrimination in the American workplace, NCPE has published a Statement of Principles that reads as follows:
True equality for the millions of women and minorities in the work force will not be achieved until there is pay equity.
Achievement of pay equity will benefit millions of households, particularly the growing number headed by women.
The drive for implementation of pay equity must be seen as reversal of a historical pattern of devaluing work done by women and minorities.
While it is crucial that all occupations be open to women and minorities, efforts must continue to find solutions to the problems of workers in female-and-minority-dominated occupations.
Pay equity is an intrinsic part of the goal of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the Equal Rights Amendment.
From these principles stems NCPE’s stated purpose, which is “to close the wage gap that still exists between women, as well as people of color, and men.” “In 1963,” says NCPE, “when the Equal Pay Act was signed, women made 59 cents on average for every dollar earned by men (based on Census figures of median wages of full-time, year-round workers). By 2002, women earned 77 cents to the dollar, a narrowing of the wage gap by less than half a cent a year. Over a working lifetime, this wage disparity costs the average American woman and her family an estimated $523,000 in lost wages, impacting Social Security benefits and pensions.”
According to NCPE, “The gap between median earnings of full-time, year-round workers widened [in 2003], with women’s earnings 76% of men’s, down from 77% in 2002. Women’s earnings were $30,724, compared to $40,668 for men. . . . Median earnings for women of color continue to be lower, in general, than earnings for men as a whole. In 2003, the earnings for African American women were $26,989, 66% of men’s earnings (down from 68% last year); Latinas at $22,363, 55% of men’s earnings (down from 56% last year); and Asian American women at $32,446, 80% of men’s earnings (wage gap remained the same).”
NCPE attributes this wage gap to the fact that “many women and people of color are still segregated into a few low-paying occupations.” “More than half of all women workers hold sales, clerical and service jobs,” NCPE laments. “Studies show that the more an occupation is dominated by women or people of color, the less it pays.” In short, NCPE offers a one-size-fits-all explanation for the earnings disparity between men and women – especially minority women: “This gap is attributable to discrimination; certain jobs pay less simply because they are held by women and people of color.”
In making the foregoing assertions, NCPE ignores a large body of research demonstrating that men as a whole earn more than women not because of discrimination, but because as a group they tend to work longer hours, more readily accept night shifts, more often take entrepreneurial risks, and earn advanced degrees in fields that pay more money than the fields women have traditionally pursued. As Warren Farrell explains in his book Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap,men and women with equal experience and qualifications, doing the same job and working the same number of hours under the same conditions, are paid equally.
NCPE also makes no allowance for the very significant fact that men as a group tend to take on more dangerous and disagreeable occupations than their female counterparts. For example, the Jobs Related Almanac ranked 250 jobs from best to worst, basing its rankings on a combination of factors that included salary, stress, work environment, security, and physical demands. According to the findings, 24 of the 25 worst jobs were almost-all-male occupations [the 25th, which was split about evenly between men and women, was professional dancing]. Among these two-dozen low-rated jobs were: truck driver, sheet-metal worker, roofer, boilermaker, lumberjack, carpenter, construction worker or foreman, construction machinery operator, welder, millwright, and ironworker. Equally notable is the fact that about 94 percent of all occupational deaths occur to men.
Neither does NCPE acknowledge that the respective marriage and childrearing choices made by men and women contribute immensely to the pay gap it routinely ascribes to discrimination. As Warren Farrel explains, the gender pay gap “is mostly about the division of labor when couples become parents. That is, dads love their family by increasing their commitment to the workplace, even when most would prefer time with their family.” In stark contrast to their married counterparts, women who have never been married and have no children actually earn 17 percent more than male workers with equal education, equal hours worked, and an equivalent number of years in the work force. “If the pay gap were about discrimination against women,” Farrell points out, “never-married women without children would not earn more than their male counterparts.”
In a similar vein, Linda Chavez writes: “Although most mothers now work outside the home, they are still more likely than fathers to take extended time off when their children are born. These interruptions, which can amount from a few weeks to several years, have consequences, which are reflected in the lower average earnings of women. But the decision to have children doesn't just reduce the number of consecutive years of work experience for most working mothers, it also influences the types of jobs women choose in the first place. Most mothers reject jobs that require very long or unpredictable hours or extensive travel, even though they may be higher paying.” These same factors also account for women’s smaller pensions and retirement savings, which NCPE ascribes entirely to discrimination.
Turning a blind eye to all this evidence, NCPE steadfastly adheres to its assertion that sex discrimination pervades the workplace. To address this allegedly severe problem, the organization identifies two “important first steps to making pay equity a reality.” These include:
“Strengthening enforcement of the Equal Pay Act by enacting the provisions of the . . . Paycheck Fairness Act, [which] would ensure effective remedies for wage discrimination and make it easier to sue on behalf of groups of women.”
“Passing the Fair Pay Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, which would address the persistent problem of paying lower wages in fields dominated by women and people of color.”
The Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA), introduced into the 109th Congress in April 2005 by Senator Hillary Clinton, “seeks to close loopholes in the FLSA [Fair Labor Standards Act] which allow for the continued discrimination of women in the workplace.” The PFA is founded on the premise that: “Even today, women earn significantly lower pay than men for work on jobs that require equal skill, effort, and responsibility and that are performed under similar working conditions. These pay disparities exist in both the private and governmental sectors. In many instances, the pay disparities can only be due to continued intentional discrimination or the lingering effects of past discrimination.” In short, the PFA deems axiomatic the NCPE’s blanket attribution of wage gaps to discrimination.
Similarly, the Fair Pay Act is rooted in the assumption that “[d]iscrimination in hiring and promotion has played a role in maintaining a segregated work force,” and that consequently “[m]any women and people of color work in occupations dominated by individuals of their same sex, race, and national origin.” The Act would establish “comparable worth wage scales” to regulate worker wages. Noting that General Accounting Office analyses of wage rates in civil service jobs have found that women tend to be disproportionately in jobs that pay lower-than-average wages, the Fair Pay Act proposes the imposition of “a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production” -- where third-party bureaucrats, and not the free market, would determine the relative values of various occupations.
In April of each year, NCPE organizes the national observance of Equal Pay Day “to raise awareness about unfair pay for women and people of color in America.” This event, NCPE explains, “is observed in April to indicate how far into each year a woman must work to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year. . . . Because women on average earn less, they must work longer for the same pay. For women of color, the wage gap is greater.” Senator Hillary Clinton was among the speakersat a Capitol Hill press event recognizing Equal Pay Day on April 19, 2005.
NCPE produces numerous fact sheets highlighting the information – however inaccurate and skewed – it wishes to disseminate to the public. One such publication contains the following assertions:
“Many women and people of color are still segregated into a small number of jobs such as clerical, service workers, nurses and teachers. These jobs have historically been undervalued and continue to be underpaid to a large extent because of the gender and race of the people who hold them.”
“Studies show that the more an occupation is dominated by women or people of color, the less it pays. Part of the wage gap results from differences in education, experience or time in the workforce. But a significant portion cannot be explained by any of those factors; it is attributable to discrimination. In other words, certain jobs pay less because they are held by women and people of color.”
The wage gap is most severe for women of color. Consider these facts about the paychecks of black and Hispanic women in the workplace:
Of full-time workers, black women’s median weekly earnings ($429) were only 64% of the earnings of white men ($669) in the year 2000.
In one year, the average black woman earns approximately $12,000 less than the average white man does. Over a 35-year career, this adds up to $420,000!
Among full-time, year-round workers, black women with Bachelors’ degrees make only $1,545 more per year than white males who have only completed high school.
Black women account for 30% of all female-headed families in the U.S. They have a median income of $18,244 annually, while families headed by white males (no wife present) have a median income of $39,240.
According to the Census Bureau, in 2000 the median full-time earnings for Hispanic women were $20,527, only 52% of the median earnings of white men ($37,339).
In one year, the average Hispanic woman working full-time earns $17,837 less than the average white man does. Over a 30-year career, that adds up to $510,000!
The median income of a female Hispanic householder ($20,765) is only 46% of the incomes of single white male householders ($44,988).
Hispanic women with a high school diploma earn $22,469. That is 33% less than white men with the same level of education.
But just as broad assertions about sex-based income disparities can grossly misrepresent the actual facts, the same is true when the independent variable is race. The research on this is clear: Adjusting for the effects of a number of crucial factors – geographic location, age, level of education, area of specialization, occupational choice, and marital status – causes income disparities between black and white workers to shrink to the vanishing point.
In its campaign to prove, against mountains of credible evidence to the contrary,that sex discrimination pervades all aspects of American society, NCPE notes the following“inequities” from the sports world:
“For winning the World Cup [in soccer], the members of the Women’s National team each received a bonus between $40,000 and $50,000. However, if the men’s team had won in 1998, it is reported that each member would have taken home a bonus of $400,000.”
“The average salary for a player in the WNBA in 1998 was $50,000, only 2% of the average salary in the NBA of $2.3 million.”
“When compared to the PGA in 1999, the LPGA annual prize money was $36.2 million, only 26.8% of the purse for the PGA of $135 million.”
The foregoing comparisons, however, are entirely meaningless. They merely reflect the vast gap in public interest and revenues generated, respectively, by the men’s and women’s divisions of each sport. Discrimination has no more to do with these numbers than with the fact that female models earn approximately five times more money than male models.
NCPE is chaired by the American Library Association’s Michele Leber, who is also a member of the Better Salaries and Pay Equity Task Force. The treasurer of NCPE is Connie Cordovilla, who also serves as associate director of the Human Rights and Community Relations Department of the American Federation of Teachers.
Moreover, NCPE’s board of directors includes several women who are prominent in feminist organizations and labor unions. Among these are: Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO; Judy Applebaum, vice president of the National Women’s Law Center; Deborah Briceland-Betts, executive director of the Older Women’s League; and Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
