U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wants law that will penalize working fathers

US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) says her Paycheck Fairness Act is necessary to address “systemic challenges that hold women back from earning a paycheck that meets their value.”

Like many politicians, she’s using legislative “sleight-of-hand” to achieve something different from what she claims.
Ms. Gillibrand asserts her Paycheck Fairness Act would do the following:

• Mandate that employers prove any pay disparity is job related. (Putting the burden of proof on employers will force employers to actually lower deserving men’s wages in order to comply.)
• Prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with co-workers. (Nonsensical windage)
• Strengthen punitive and compensatory damages. (Socialism and more government.)
• Require the U.S. Department of Labor to improve outreach to employers to eliminate pay disparities. (Cost $$$)
• Enhance the collection of wage information to address pay disparities.
(Cost $$$)
• Create grant programs to strengthen the negotiation skills of girls and women.

(More gender discrimination. Why not teach everyone how to negotiate?)

In reality, this socialist, anti-working men and anti-father’s legislation would not “level the playing field” between men and women because women are not being “shortchanged” as Gillibrand claims.

Dr. Warren Farrell’s groundbreaking study “Why Men Earn More” came to the startling conclusion that “women now earn more money for the same work…when they work equal hours at the same job with the same size of responsibility for the same length of time with equal productivity.” Says Dr. Farrell, “The women’s movement can celebrate its greatest single triumph — exceeding its goal of equal pay for equal work.”

Dr. Farrell, the only man ever elected three times to the Board of the National Organization for Women in NYC, wrote his book as a how-to guide for women to maximize their earning potential.

Ms. Gillibrand, who is quick to cite Bureau of Labor Statistics suggesting women on average make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, seems to take her information out of context. She wants to attribute it to discrimination and not free market factors that make for increased productivity.

In short, in a free market, you hire those who are the most productive not based on gender but performance.
Dr. Farrell argues the reasons for pay disparity have nothing to do with discrimination. In his book Dr. Farrell lists 25 different workplace choices that lead to increased pay for men.

“Men earn more than women, but not for the same work – for 25 different workplace choices,” says Dr. Farrell. “Men’s choices lead to men earning more money; women’s choices lead to women having better lives.”

Some of the choices men make – oftentimes at a sacrifice – oftentimes so that their wives and mothers’ of their children can spend more time at home with their children - include working more hours; taking more-hazardous assignments; moving overseas to an undesirable location on-demand; and training for more-technical jobs with less people contact.

“Women’s choices appear more likely to involve a balance between work and the rest of life,” says Dr. Farrell. “Women are more likely to balance income with a desire for safety, fulfillment, potential for personal growth, flexibility and proximity-to-home. These lifestyle advantages lead to more people competing for these jobs and thus lower pay.”

Ms. Gillibrand, however, lumps unequal effort and unequal jobs and commitment to those jobs and the duration a person has been at those jobs - into one job, forgetting what intangibles have in making a company profitable. And after all profit is what allows employers to hire employees.

Ms. Gillibrand seems determined to exploit the “ Battle of the Sexes” by pandering to her meal-ticket constituency.

"Women make up more than half the country's population and more than half the workforce," said Ms. Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) "Women are out-earning men in college degrees and advanced degrees. But ... men are still out-earning women at work."

So why is she not working to pass a bill requiring colleges to improve college degree equality?

The proposed legislation not only ignores considerable research that shows childbearing and family considerations to be the primary reasons for pay disparities between the sexes. It also ignores physical realities that not only account for “ladies tees” in golf and the absence of female participants in the National Football League.

What Ms. Gillibrand and her ilk desire is more government control over the private sector. The Paycheck Fairness Act would provide another slippery slope for bureaucrats to interfere with business. It would create an environment in which discrimination against men is inevitable.