Equal Pay for Equal Work - No Job, No Pay

Because of the heightened sensitivity of liberals to women's issues, it is not uncommon for Democrat politicians to conveniently exploit these issues and use them to distract attention away from other more critical and more time-sensitive matters.

For instance, since Obama was elected president, the country has undergone an economic crisis (which, admittedly, was not entirely his fault) and the worst recovery since the Great Depression (which was primarily his fault).(See HERE) And, his administration has been embroiled in numerous scandals. (See HERE)  So, it isn't surprising to see the President periodically prioritizing certain sensationalistic women's issues in his campaign speeches and State of the Union addresses.

While this may work politically, and garner votes and appreciation where needed, the unfortunate reality is that some of the significant matters from which attention may be distracted, tend to impact women more negatively and extensively than some of the women's issues being trotted out. Having the government pay for women's contraceptives is certainly far less grave than seeing women losing their homes and retirement savings to a downward-spiraling economy.

And, as vital as it may seem for liberals to achieve the mythical state of wage equity between the sexes (see the next several posts), the difference in wages between men and women becomes relatively meaningless to the growing number of laborers who have lost their jobs and are not working. At least unequal wages are better than none--though ironically income equality invariably occurs through unemployment (zero jobs equal zero pay for both sexes).

With this in mind, since 1979 the number and proportion of women in the workforce steadily increased, particularly among wage earners (as differentiated from salaried workers), where in 1999 female wage earners began to outnumber men. (See HERE)

However, this upward trend reversed itself in 2009, the first year of the Obama presidency. (ibid.)

Granted, the upward trend for working men also reversed in 2009, though women were forced out of work in proportionately greater numbers than men. (ibid.)

From 2009 to 2011, a net of more than 2 million women, or 3.2% of the female labor market, lost work (as compared with 2.1 million men, or 3.1% of the male labor market). (ibid)

To me, this is huge, and ought to be priority one among women's issues.

Yet, one of the Leftist LUNCs of the "equal pay for equal work" movement, is that attention and political energy has been distracted away for the grave matter of disproportionate female unemployment, and directed instead towards the misguided and counterproductive pursuit of mythical income inequality.

NEXT in SERIES      START of SERIES      SUBJECT INDEX

For an explanation as to why these Leftist LUNCs may occur, please see: Gov: Wrong Tool for the Right Job - Introduction and Cold Nanny as well as The Politics of Compassion, Emotions, Ignorance, Denial, Blame-Shifting, Equality, and Victimization