Seriously, Reason magazine reports on a poll of millennial women, ages 18 to 36+. The poll was taken in March by ABC (pdf warning). While the top line results may look like it's a good group for the Evil Party, looking deeper than even a surface scratch speaks of a different picture. To begin with, when they're at the young end of that age spectrum, they are fairly liberal, but the older they get the more conservative they get. They completely flip percentages in 18 years.
The one that was noted by Reason, but fits in with other things we've heard is this. When asked about their important issues, the same percentage or women thought gun rights were their most important issue as that thought abortion access was most important.
Asked to say which of seven issues they found most important, millennial women were most likely to be concerned about "economic inequality" and student loan debt. The next biggest issues, with 11 percent each, were "protecting gun rights," "equal pay for women," and "preserving access to abortion." Eight percent listed "lowering taxes" as their top concern and 4 percent chose "strengthening the military." [Note: Emphasis Added - SiG]The myth of women earning about 25% less than men on the average sure is pernicious though. No matter how many studies come out showing that it isn't true, or that the supporting studies don't compare the same jobs, or any of the other reasons, it just hangs on there. Sure helps to have that 24/7 left wing media pushing those ideas for them, doesn't it?
Conservative women were almost as likely as liberals, and more likely than those who described themselves as moderate, to see economic inequality as a top concern. They were less concerned about student loans (12 percent, versus 23 percent of liberals and 25 percent of moderates) but more concerned about gun rights (19 percent, versus nine percent of moderates and five percent of liberals).
The only thing that's remarkable in this study, to these old eyes, is that gun rights have come seemingly out of nowhere to be a strong concern. The exact numbers they presented aren't terribly important, but they reported two issues that are solidly "most important" issues: student debt and income inequality. There's your Bernie Sanders voters, right there, "gimme, gimme, gimme", or in this case, "pay off my student loans and make sure I make lots of money". On the other hand, it sounds like the Evil Party is not appealing to these young women with their endless ranting on restricting gun rights.
As I've said many times, I hate day-to-day politics. It's like cleaning out the cat box: a disgusting, nasty job that only gets more disgusting and nasty if you don't do it. But I sure see ways to spread the liberty message to these ladies. If they'd talk to an old dude who looks a bit more like Aqualung every day!
I agree with student loan debt being a major problem. In 1970, only 10 percent of Americans were college graduates, and those graduates made a lot of money. So, naturally, the parents of children who grew up in the 60s and 70s made sending their kids to college a priority, and colleges responded by opening one on every corner, and kids began going to college for its own sake.
ReplyDeleteFor example, we now have stupid 4 year degrees in "Anthropoligy," or "African Studies," and "Women's Stduies," while degrees in actually paying careers like Physician Assistants went from being 2 year degrees to being a 6 year Masters program, or even a PhD.
This drove prices for a college education through the roof, and now a student graduates from college with $35,000 in student loan debt for a 4 year degree, even considering grants and scholarships.
My solution is to stop handing everyone money for college, and let the problem sort itself out. Worthless colleges offering worthless degrees will go out of business.
The bigger problem here is this: The Republicans need to change their focus, or they are history. Of the 11 largest problems, the Republicans only address three, and are actively opposed to 5 of them.
It is time for them to stop wasting political capital on sideshows, and stop pushing religion so hard. If the Republicans don't start picking their battles, they will lose the ability to make any difference at all.
So don't die on the hill of things like gay marriage or you will find that the war ended, and you were wiped out in the process.
Also, I used to think that pay inequality was a thing of the past, but I think there may be some validity to it-
ReplyDeleteI was hired to teach Science at a High School where my fiance had been working for the past 8 years. Prior to teaching at that school, she had taught in another state for two years.
I got there with 3 Bachelor's degrees, and no high school experience. I was offered just $2,000 less per year than she was making.
There is some validity to the claim, I think.
I guess I don't understand. You're saying that you being offered less pay than her indicates she's being discriminated against?
DeleteRegardless, I don't think that's what they're calling income inequality. I think their definition would be you getting paid more just because you're male. In this case, with no classroom experience, but with three more degrees after your name, that might explain you making more than a new grad teacher, but still less than your fiance (assuming that's the case). Science (and math) teachers kind of break the curves because most of the new grad teachers can't teach those subjects.
Hayek and other brilliant minds have been writing on the trade-off of freedom or equality for decades. Centuries, really. There's no way to guarantee equal outcomes for people with different gifts and experiences in life aside from all-powerful tyrannical government.
The 73 cents on the dollar story, which is more along the lines of you'll be getting paid more just because you're male, has been debunked over and over. My last manager before retiring was a 30-something Latina Systems Engineer. I'm quite sure she made more than I did; me as a 60-something white dude with more experience than she had and a specialist in a field she had no knowledge of. In our field, anyone looking at payroll demographics found that there was no big, 25 or 27% difference, when adjusted for years of service, degree levels, years in the field and those rational adjustments. Where this whole "women make less than men" meme comes from is by comparing jobs that are really different. Things like comparing a librarian, which might require some college, with an oil field welder, which might also require some certification. You simply can't compare those jobs.
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DeleteNo, I am saying that despite the fact that she has a Masters degree and ten years' experience that I do not have, yet I am only getting $2K per year less, means that there may be some validity to the theory.
ReplyDeleteA Masters degree means that she can teach dual enrollment, and I cannot. The subject you teach doesn't matter when it comes to teaching. A PE or Art teacher generally makes the same as a Science teacher.
You obviously have knowledge I don't have, but it doesn't surprise me or seem unusual at all. You have less experience, but more degrees, so she should make more and does. She has a Masters and can teach dual enrollment, which you can't - but you can teach "hard science" and she can't. Still advantage to her, but not as big an advantage. While I expect PE or Art teachers are protected by a union contract, I see schools trying to recruit STEM teachers, not PE or Art.
DeleteSo how big a percentage is $2k? If you're making (rough guess) 5% less than her, I'd guess that's about right. I don't see how you should make 10% less than her, for example. If you're making 2% less than her, maybe there's something there. I know virtually nothing about teacher pay, except that my son was a HS science teacher in Orlando right out of college, but that was 10 years ago.
It's all apples and oranges. Identical teachers teaching different subject get paid different wages. Science and math teachers are in demand while English and social sciences not so much.
ReplyDeleteYears ago the city of San Francisco tried to create "equality" of pay and decided that Librarians should be paid the same as chemists/engineers. Pardon me but a Librarian! Really!
It is rare that today you can find two identical workers, one male and one female, who are paid differently because of their gender. Usually when you dig deeper you will find absences, perhaps due to pregnancy or child rearing such that the experience and time on the job is different. You will also find different attitudes where male worker is aggressive and the female passive in their work but the female fails to even recognize this fact because of their different personality. Police women have said that until the day they were actually involved in a physical altercation they believed they were the equal to a male policeman and only after being easily beaten did they realize what the entire police force knew instinctively; that they were less capable than the male officers.
We have, with little thought about the negative outcomes, set up a massive study of this in our military. We have decided to put women into combat. Will it prove that women are equal to men and every common sense person in the world is wrong? Or will it end one day in a slaughter of our fighting men and women because of a weak link we placed there in a pseudo-bias free decision.
If a male reporter where to be treated like Michelle Fields was and cried to the police would they be laughed out of the job?
Comment of the day, right there. If you don't read the cartoon, "Day By Day", you should go read it now.
DeleteThe idea of saying a librarian should earn the same as Chemist because they both require a Bachelor's degree is the idiocy that gives rise to the idea of "75 cents to the dollar" (or whatever number they made up). I honestly, literally saw someone saying that a woman working daycare for children should make what a guy working as an oil field roughneck makes. That is the sort of insanity we're talking about.
I suggest that if the daycare worker wants to be paid what the roughneck is paid, she should be willing to expose herself to identical amounts of danger...heck let them swap jobs for a week, and see if she (given no more support than the man normally got) still feels that way. The oil worker will probably go nuts dealing with so many kids, but the daycare worker will probably die, and take a few good men with her while she's at it. Women in submarines, in combat MOS's...it's like Carter, Maybus, et al *want* to be eventually shot for treason. God help us.
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