gender wage gap
67 pieces tagged “gender wage gap”, newest first.
The Empty Case for Progressive Taxation
Progressives are increasingly preoccupied with income inequality, and their current hero, Sen. Bernie Sanders, favors increasing the tax system's progressivity. So, in this 103rd year of the income tax, it is timely to note that there still is no intellectually sturdy case for progressive taxation. Arguments for it are invariably arguments for increased equality of social outcomes. Because individuals have different vocational desires and different aptitudes for adding value to the economy, inequality is inevitable
Hillary's Demagoguery
If an employer could hire a woman to do the same job as a man for one-fourth less pay, who do you think the employer is going to hire? The woman or the man? That's a no brainer. Or, a least it's a no brainer if employers care anything about making a profit. But if you listen to Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, we are being asked to believe that is exactly what is happening. And it's not just one employer. In order for there to be persistent differences in what men and women are paid for the same work, entire industries have to be discriminating.
Why Inequality Is the Democrats’ Dilemma
Strike up a conversation with any taxi cab driver or any fry cook at a roadside diner and the word "inequality" is unlikely to ever come up.
Democrats' Debate: No Solution for Economic Inequality, No Interest in Economic Growth
You may not have noticed, but Lincoln Chafee, the erstwhile Republican U.S. senator and Independent-turned-Democratic governor, had one penetrating comment at the Democrats' debate Tuesday night. "But let me just say this about income inequality," he said toward the end. "We've had a lot of talk over the last few minutes, hours or tens of minutes, but no one is saying how we're going to fix it."
The Democrats' Preoccupation With Inequality
If you want to understand today's Democratic Party, a word search of the Democrats' debate last week provides a pretty clear picture.
Is Economic Equality a Moral Imperative?
America is more distant from the 1933 beginning of the New Deal (82 years) than that beginning was from the 1865 end of the Civil War (68 years). Both episodes involved the nation's understanding of equality: The war affirmed equality of natural rights, the New Deal addressed unequal social conditions. Today's Democratic Party is frozen, like a fly in amber, in the New Deal preoccupation — but with less excuse than Democrats had during the Great Depression. The party believes that economic inequality is an urgent problem, and that its urgency should be understood in terms of huge disparities of wealth. Neither proposition is (to use the term Jefferson used when he wrote equality into America's catechism) a self-evident truth.
Charlatans and Sheep
One of the many painful signs of the mindlessness of our times was a recent section of the Wall Street Journal, built around the theme "What's Holding Women Back in the Workplace?" Whenever some group is not equally represented in some institution or activity, the automatic response in some quarters is to assume that someone has prevented equality of outcomes.
Opportunity Versus Outcomes
A hostile review of my new book — "Wealth, Poverty and Politics" — said, "there is apparently no level of inequality of income or opportunity that Thomas Sowell would consider unacceptable." Ordinarily, reviewers who miss the whole point of a book they are reviewing can be ignored. But this particular confusion about what opportunity means is far too widespread, far beyond a particular reviewer of a particular book. That makes it a confusion worth clearing up, because it affects so many other discussions of very serious issues.