The Blog

CBS: WH 'Roughed Up By Its Own Pay Equity Rhetoric'

8:23 AM, Apr 8, 2014 • By DANIEL HALPER         
CBS says the White House is getting "roughed up by its own pay equity rhetoric."

"The White House is getting, as you indicated Norah, roughed up by its own pay equity rhetoric," reported Major Garrett. "In an analysis of White House salaries, which nobody here disputes,  shows that the median income of female staffers is 88 percent of that of male staffers."

"Now the study also showed that men and women with the same White House jobs earn exactly the same salary. Now the White House said its gender pay gap is tied to job experience, education, and hours worked among other factors. This matters because those explanations, according to the Labor Department, explain a good deal of the gender pay gap nationally. The big difference in these stories: When President Obama discusses this issue nationally, he doesn't mention those other work variables, only the broad figure, that 77 cents for every dollar is what women earn compared to men," said Garrett.

"When the factors that the White House used to defend its gender pay gap are used nationally, the Labor Department says the difference in median wages between men and women shrinks to about 5 cents to 7 cents on the dollar."