Is Rachel Maddow sincere?

[hfojvt]

Of course, by asking that question here I sorta feel like I rolled in bacon grease, walking into a den of hungry lions and shouted "dinnertime!"

Rachel is widely admired here. She's smart. She's funny. She's passionate. And heck, she's even good looking (in my eyes, tastes differ).

I always watched her show, and enjoyed it, for the brief time when I had cable TV. But is she good for us? Is she honest? Or is she playing us for fools in order to make her million dollar salary?

Somerby, a blogger I started reading in perhaps 2002, criticizes her quite a bit. So much so, that some readers/commenters on his blog see him as just another rightwinger harping about the liberal media. Which is kinda funny, considering that he started his blog detailing how the media was unfairly attacking Al Gore.

Still, even I find him to be somewhat too centrist, as he seemed to support Hillary in the 2008 primary. He's perhaps not a member of the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" as many of us think of ourselves here.

Or he wouldn't say this in today's post.

"By how much are women underpaid? It’s very hard to answer that question; there’s no easy way to tell. But whether we liberals like it or not, Republicans are largely in the right when they challenge the familiar claim that women are underpaid by 23 cents on the dollar."

Rachel assures us that Republicans are wrong, but one of the ways she proves that is with selective editing that seems as dishonest as what Breitbart does. As Somerby details, she played a tape of somebody agreeing with her and then continued

"MADDOW: Women get paid less than men do, 77 cents on the dollar on average. That’s true. Democrats know that’s true. It is the accepted truth by anybody who is looking at the facts of the matter. Republicans do not know that’s true."

As if she was unaware of what the rest of the tape would say

"Now, as you go along, as you control for other factors, even if you control for everything you could possibly imagine, all those things, the college, the hours worked— Men still make more than women, that gap narrows, it's about 5 cents of a difference."

Rachel claimed 23 cents and implied that anybody who denied 23 cents was deluded, a denier of reality. Someone so bizarre that she could not understand how they were thinking (if it could even be called thought).

The thing is this. A five percent gap is unacceptable. It's a significant amount of money, and I do not accept discrimination. A 5% pay gap deserves to be fought. But if you stubbornly claim something that is not true, that the pay gap is really 23%, then you undermine a fight for fairness by making yourself look dishonest or deluded in the eyes of an objective observer.

The question is, whether we are fact based objective observers, or if we are hopelessly in love with people who seem to get paid millions of dollars to misinform us. And who also would stir up hatred or contempt for people who disagree with us.

http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2012/05/do-you-believe-what-maddow-said.html

But some readers, perhaps will not think that I am sincere.

[Enrique]

1. she gets things wrong sometimes

like everyone on the planet, including Somerby.

Rachel corrects factual errors. Does Somerby?

[AtomicKitten]

2. I believe she cares about relaying the unvarnished truth.

She is open to criticism and quick to make corrections where warranted.

Facts are facts; it's the interpretation of facts that is the underpinning of opinion.

If I only have time to watch one of the several talking heads I record on my DVR, I will watch Rachel. I think she is brilliant and funny, and she's my go-to girl on the daily grind of the news cycle. I don't always agree with her, but I always respect her and I'm delighted MSNBC does too.

[HiPointDem]

3. if she cared about unvarnished truth, she wouldn't have quoted the clip selectively.

[AtomicKitten]

8. Her point - that a gap exists - seems to be lost on the pickers of nits

... and the criticism leans heavily on putting words in her mouth.

"Burn her!!!"

[HiPointDem]

11. 23% v. 5% = not a nit. It's a huge difference.

[unblock]

44. mathematically, sure. but politically, morally, and otherwise, no.

if a 5% difference due purely to sex discrimination (i.e., after controlling for other factors) is a significant problem, then in terms of motivating action it doesn't much matter; it's a significant problem either way.

in terms of being technically correct (something i value, even if it's politically unimportant or even distracting) BOTH number are correct, the question is how you characterize the numbers. essentially, the 23% figure is valid before controlling for factors other than direct sex discrimination; the 5% figure is valid after controlling for those factors (or at least that's apparently what the research shows).

so whether or not maddow is right or wrong do not depend on which number she emphasizes, what matters is how she characterizes that number. if she says women are, on average, paid 23% less than men for comparable work, then she's right. if she says that that difference is due entirely to direct sex discrimination, then she's wrong.

[HiPointDem]

49. Then why not say "Women doing the same work/hours with the same qualifications, experience, on

average, make about 95% of what men with the same qualifications, experience do?"

I think we all know why Maddow didn't say that.

Because, whether *you* think that portion is still a big deal, the general public will not. Most of them have other things to worry about, like unemployment, like the loss of their housing equity, like low wages generally, etc.

[unblock]

60. just to be clear, then, we're no longer talking about maddow getting it wrong in any way.

normally, somerby's blog is about people getting it wrong. facts wrong, misinterpreting data, etc.

not in this case, apparently, we're talking about maddow choosing the wrong statistic to focus on.
one which, by the way, carries less political punch.

besides, as i've mentioned elsewhere, some of that remaining 18% still may have a significant disciminatory cause, just not direct discrimination by the present employer. to whatever extent women have inferior qualifications and experience due to previous discrimination or the discrimination of others, this is still a problem (or several problems) albeit that they may need different solutions to address.

the only thing that's "wrong" here is somerby calling maddow to the carpet for getting anything wrong. if he thinks the 5% statistic, after controlling for various factors, is the most relevant, that doesn't change the 23% statistic before controlling for those factors, and it doesn't make maddow wrong to focus on that number -- provided she didn't mischaracterize it. and unless i missed it in somerby's blog, the only mischaracterization going on it that somerby drew a conclusion about the way maddow was thinking about the 23% number that is not supported by any of her quotes he put in his blog.

[HiPointDem]

65. There may indeed be some form of discrimination going on beneath that 18%, but it's nothing

so simplistic as the kind of thing Maddow is harping on, nor can it be fixed by the kind of measures Maddow is supporting.

Which is why I consider her dishonest. Her report actually *misleads* and *misinforms* the audience, leading those who support equality to go away with the impression that overt discrimination by employers is the root problem and that the adjustments made less of a difference than they actually did.

I'm a woman who worked from the beginning of the civil rights era, I know how it was and how it is. But I'm a working class woman, and I know that the injury to me & mine from gender inequality is dwarfed by the injury from class inequality.

I don't understand your point about sommersby. If full-time women workers in job category A make 23% less than men but e.g. work 9% fewer hours and have 9% less experience, why is the 77% figure important?

The 77% figure doesn't reflect the principle of "equal pay for equal work assuming equal hours/equal qualifications/equal experience" as well as the 5% figure (assuming the adjustments are done fairly).

At any rate, an honest discussion of both is warranted. Not the biased presentation Maddow made.

[unblock]

71. the 77% figure may still be relevant if we want to rectify past wrongs,

or if we want otherwise to end ongoing differences in the way women are treated vs. men.

let's assume for the moment that the 5% figure that represents direct sex discrimination actually were zero. absolutely no direct discrimination. but there was still an 18% gap in pay due to past discrimination, or due to social/marital pressures on women, which may push them to be less available for longer hours or travel due to home life choices, etc.

that's still an issue that society may want to address as it feeds ongoing stereotypes and may lead to future direct discrimination. and it may be a form of discrimination in and of itself -- why might compensation structures be set up to reward the things women might be under pressure not to do, etc.



by the way, maddow is under no obligation to be unbiased or to present both or all sides of the story. she shouldn't lie or even be wrong, but even if the 23% figure, properly explained, is somehow biased, that's an editorial decisions well within her charter and it's hardly appropriate for somerby to call her out for it. somerby normally calls journalists out for getting it WRONG, not for presenting a view or focusing --accurately -- on a statistic that packs more punch even if that statistic doesn't explain everything that's going on. pundits and editorialists and opinion makers would have quite a time squeezing a show in if that were the requirement.

[HiPointDem]

74. no, she's under no obligation to present a full picture, but in that case, how is what she does

different from fox news?

why is it inappropriate for somerby to call her out? she invited him on the show. presumably as a foil, so she could paint him as the big bad man once again interrupting the female.

yes, a statistic "packs more punch" when you don't explain the nuances. it also conveys a misleading and propagandistic aim.

i've already agreed with you that there may be things going on under the surface of that explained 18%. But so far as I can see, most of it has to do with the greater burden women bear in child-rearing.

And since the gap is most obvious the higher you go in the income scale, I don't see that it should all necessarily be read as indicative of discrimination, past or present. It could equally well be read as indicative of the privilege of upper-class women. Unless it's your belief that most women prefer sitting in corporate board rooms to spending time with their kids. Some do, but in my experience most don't, at least when they're young.

[unblock]

79. foxnews is different in at least 2 respects:

first, they claim to be news when in fact it's topical op/ed.
second, they overtly lie, such as repeatedly identifying republicans involved in scandals as democrats.


maddow doesn't claim to be news, she claims to be topical op/ed, which is what foxnews is (with overt lies thrown in). when doing op/ed, you select the points that advocate for your position, and leave it to the opposition op/eds to bring up the points that advocate for theirs.

personally, i think that if use of the 23% figure is biased to overstate the problem, then the 5% figure is biased to understate it. i agree that not all of the 23% is curable or attributable to things that society can or would want to cure; yes, at the end of the day, women do tend to opt to be more involved in child-rearing and for those who do, in some cases, their pay may legitimately suffer for it.

but if to whatever extent the 18% does have areas that society could or should address, then the 5% figure ignores them and is therefore biased in the other direction.

[hfojvt]

80. it's not "comparable work" though. It is just an aggregate.

A comparison of medians. For example somebody who works six hour days only makes 75 cents for every dollar a person who works eight hour days makes. Wouldn't you feel like a sucker if somebody got you all exited about the injustice of people who make 75 cents for ever dollar some other people make and then you found out the one group was working six hours and the other group was working eight hours.

I sure would. Because then the problem would be "get group A more hours" instead of "get group A more money".

Being technically correct is not a defense. George W. Bush was "technically correct" when he said "the bottom end of the economic ladder receives the biggest percentage cuts". Yes, that was technically true, but it was also deliberately misleading because he was using that as a way to say "my tax cuts do not favor the rich".

It's not valid to push the 23 cent pay gap as evidence of discrimination if a majority of that gap is not due to discrimination.

[unblock]

82. i don't think we have enough information to say how much of it is due to discrimination

difference in pay for the exact same work, exact same hours, and exact same skill competence level, etc., is obviously direct discrimination. that's the 5% figure. but other discriminatory effects may exist in the remaining 18% figure as well. if women are working fewer hours, or don't have the same credentials or skills, WHY is that the case?

to the extent that such difference are due to few women wanting to be roughnecks, say, then perhaps that's not anything to be particularly worried about.

but to the extent that such differences are due to women being denied opportunities to work longer hours or to advance into the more lucrative lines of work (such as high-level management, perhaps), then yes, it is a problem.

so if it's not valid to push the 23% figure because it overstates the problem, then it's also not valid to push the 5% figure because it understates the problem.

[LiberalLoner]

26. For the longest time I didn't know what a nit was.

I like Rachel Maddow. Actually I love her. Not like a stalker or anything, just the regular kind of love.

[Ruby the Liberal]

35. It won't work. She is the Queen of the Undead.

At least this (similar in intellect) review was funny.

[AtomicKitten]

41. Lesbian vampire?!

Well, Rachel would certainly rock this outfit (click twice to watch on youtube)

[Ruby the Liberal]

45. I remember when that aired.

I couldn't wait for MSNBC to put that up on their site. Was laughing so hard that I missed most of it the first time.

As for that video, I am now afraid of you. Please tell me that was a random google and not in your bookmarks somewhere.

[AtomicKitten]

63. HORROR!!!

Better than bookmarked, I have Queen of the Damned in my DVD library.

The late Aaliyah is exquisitely creepy in the role and her ensemble is tres magnifique!

Boo!

[hfojvt]

12. and people who only watch her show

and didn't see the whole segment on CNN or read the Daily Howler, will not know that she did so. Heck, maybe she doesn't know that she did so and the partial clip was put together by a staffer.

My point is that even though we are supposed to be on the same team, I don't like to see my team playing dirty. Not if I call out the other team for doing the same thing.

[Aerows]

37. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt

If she doesn't issue a correction, then I will criticize her. Nobody is perfect, not even Rachel Maddow.

[unblock]

4. sometimes it's somerby who commits the howler

in this case, at least, i can't find an objectionable maddow quote. yes, she repeatedly goes to the 77% figure, but somerby never quotes her as saying that that number represents anything other than what it actually represents -- that on average, women get paid 23% less.

could it be that only 5% of this is due to actual, direct, sex discrimination? sure, but that doesn't change that fact that the raw number is 23% and that's all that she's saying, at least in somerby's blog, unless i'm missing something.

moreover, even if 5% is due to direct discrimination, that doesn't mean that the remaining portion of the pay gap should be dismissed. let's say that a chunk of it is that women have less experience than men. so employers aren't discriminating based on sex, they're discriminating based on experience. well, then, perhaps we should do something to narrow the experience gap, and perhaps the experience gap exists because of previous (and perhaps ongoing) discrimination.

[hfojvt]

15. yeah that's what the first commenter thought too

and I responded there.

Yet you seem to be playing it both ways.

First you say "she didn't say the whole 23% was due to discrimination" and then you say "maybe the whole 23% really IS due to discrimination".

But my point would be that wage discrimination is different from hiring discrimination and promoting discrimination. Even if they are all part of the same problem, they would be solved by different policies and thus it is kinda important to not over-state the pay differences.

[unblock]

46. well i think there's direct discrimination and indirect discrimination

by direct discrimination i mean an employer deciding on a woman's pay and, consciously or not, lowering it from what it otherwise would be because she's a woman or does things that may be irrelevant to job performance but are stereotypically female.

by indirect discrimination i mean the workplace collectively paying women less because they have less experience due to previous discrimination or the discrimination of others. an employer may not be discriminating directly, but may be taking advantage of the discrimination of others.

so i would argue that the 23% could be divided into 3 parts; the 5% that's due to direct sex discimination, another part that's due to indirect sex discrimination, and a third part that's due to factors having nothing to do with discrimination at all (such as work/life decisions actually made by the employee rather than guessed or imposed by the employer, or the rare job where physiological differences actually matter).


the main point is that the 23% figure is not wrong, it depends on how it is characterized.

[just1voice]

5. All TV talking heads are limited in their "honesty"

If they were being honest they'd have to admit that there is no left/right paradigm, the right is completely insane and only argues "points" for the sake of argument and obstruction. The right doesn't actually have any kind of platform or ideals or beliefs other than cashing in on whomever will pay them. But TV is propaganda as described here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

"Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. Propaganda is usually repeated and dispersed over a wide variety of media in order to create the desired result in audience attitudes."

"As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare."

[DearAbby]

6. Maddow did mention these other studies

no matter how you slice it, women are still being discriminated against. THAT WAS HER MAIN POINT. I see here quibbling, when it is clear there is a bias against women. What do we do to correct it?

[HiPointDem]

23. "discriminated against" = systematic lower pay for women v. men for doing the same work with the

same qualifications.

but the adjustments that maddow neglected to mention show something different.

it's hard to see how this systematic discrimination by employers could be occurring since equal pay for equal work = the law of the land.

unless you're saying there are massive violations going on and women are just sitting back & allowing that to happen.

[Aerows]

38. At a lot of companies

You aren't allowed to know what anyone else is getting paid, so you don't know that other people make more than you or not unless someone slips. It has caused more than one disgruntled reaction. Also, with bonuses, it is strictly to be confidential what your bonus is. I've had a yearly bonus that was equal to 10% of my salary before - I certainly wasn't allowed to discuss that.

[HiPointDem]

52. "At a lot of companies" = more true for the top 20% than the bottom 80%. Yes, at the top

these things can be fiddled a lot more.

That's why upper-class women like Rachel Maddow think the wage gap is a big deal.

While at the bottom women are more likely to think that their partners'/fathers'/brothers' declining wages, which aren't compensated for by their slightly rising ones, are an even bigger deal.

[Aerows]

56. It still is a big deal

that there is a wage gap.

So I guess women should be worried about what men get paid more than what they get paid for the job they do? Good luck with that one.

I think we should ALL be concerned about everyone's wage inequality, top and bottom, because the fewer people that have money, the less chance that the economy will improve dramatically.

[HiPointDem]

58. no, it's a big deal to some in the top 20%. like maddow. personally, i could care that she gets

5% less than some male talking head.

i am way more concerned that the bottom 20% has *lost* income as a group, even though women have *gained* against men within that group. Yeah! Equal lower wages, ain't it peachy!

and i am way more concerned that similar trends hold for the bottom 50% generally. and continue to roll on to touch larger fractions of the population.

why isn't maddow devoting as much time to the decimation of the public sector and teaching, both of which employ women at high rates, as she does to the phony "23% gap" which is actually a 5% gap, if she's so frigging concerned about women's issues?

because, per her class bias, she doesn't see those kinds of things as women's issues.

[Aerows]

61. I'm female

Because I'm a female and it is important to me. Apparently, you are miffed that men have lost ground in wages against women. It's also awful when women do the same work as men and get paid less.

I think you can forget about going back to the "good old days" when the man was the bread winner, had a wife that waited on him hand and foot at home, and you need to get over it. Everybody has to work these days, and since we do, it should be fair.

[HiPointDem]

62. I'm also female. I'm not "miffed" that men have lost ground, I'm angry, outraged, that the entire

bottom half of the population has lost ground even though women in this half of the population have supposedly "gained".

Sorry, there's no gain when your family as a whole (extended, nuclear) is actually poorer and more stressed than before.

[Aerows]

64. Let me state this plainly

Wealth inequality SUCKS. Let me state that plainly. Our #1 problem is that the rich are insanely rich and getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. That has NO bearing whatsoever on the fact that if a woman does equal work, she should get equal pay.

Those two situations are two different problems, unless you are a woman that would rather stay at home and have a man as the breadwinner. That, of course, would cut the labor pool down significantly but then women would go back to the days when they were stuck in the role of obedient. I don't want to go back there, and I was raised as all the women in my family were to work outside of the home BECAUSE of that.

[HiPointDem]

66. And let me state *this* plainly. No one is disputing the principle of equal pay for equal work,

least of all myself.

What I am disputing is Maddow's biased, misleading presentation of the facts, the root problem she leads the audience to identify, and the solutions she encourages them to support.

And she makes such a presentation not because she can't see the nuance in the data (v. the simplistic picture she paints), but because she *chooses* to present a simplistic picture.
I can only assume that choice is based on her own class position and the interests of her employers.

And I *will* say something when such a person is held up as a model "lefty".

I am also disputing the relative significance of this 5% wage gap when the gap between the bottom 20% and the top 20% has grown several times that over the last 30-odd years.

[DearAbby]

69. Why do you talk adjustments?

why should there be adjustments if there is no pay differences? It's not a MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM...it's discrimination against an American worker (who happens to be female)


ADJUSTMENTS?

[HiPointDem]

72. statistical adjustments. it *is* partly a mathematical problem, even if you don't understand it.

[DearAbby]

88. Just sounds like a way to justify paying women less than men.

[HiPointDem]

90. sorry it's so difficult for you.

[hfojvt]

81. because some adjustments are logical

For example, should a woman who works four hours get the same pay as a man who works 8 hours? Is it discrimination if he makes twice as much money as her? (It may be, in one sense if he was picked for the full time job for sexist reasons, BUT it is not "wage discrimination".

Should a woman with one year of experience make as much as a man with fifteen years of experience?
Should a woman with a GED make as much as a man with a master's degree?

In fact, wouldn't we rightly be calling "sexism" if a man with one year of experience was making as much as a woman with fifteen years?

And what about location, location, location. I would wager that a Kmart checker makes more money in San Fransisco than they do in Boone, Iowa. It's not sex discrimination if a man in San Fransisco makes more money than a woman in Boone. Heck it is not even wage discrimination if a man in Storyville makes more than a woman in Boone. They are not working for the same store.

There are any number of things which create legitimate income differentials that need to be accounted for before you make a valid comparison. Otherwise you might call me a fool because I paid 1,000 times more than my brother for a truck that gets much worse gas mileage. I'd look like a fool if you didn't know that I am 23 and my brother is 9 and I got a Ford F-150 and he got a Tonka.

[DearAbby]

89. Just more reasons to justify paying women less than men.

[hfojvt]

92. just to be clear then

you do think that a woman who works four hours should make just as much money as a man doing the same job who works for six hours?

You do think a woman with one year of experience should be paid just as much as a man with ten years of experience?

And you do think a woman with a GED should be paid just as much as a man with a master's degree?

[joeglow3]

55. You know she was being dishonest

There is no way in hell I tolerate this spin from Hannity, Limpballs or O'leilly. I won't compromise my values and tolerate it because it is someone from my side doing. Sadly, most people will GLADLY do it, which is why all these people above are so damn popular.

[One of the 99]

7. Bob Somersby is a PUMA

He never got over the fact that Hillary Clinton lost in '08 and has turned his ire on those he blames for it. He has spent more time over the last 4 years attacking MSNBC than FAUX and has a real obsession with Rachel Maddow. The man has really gone over to the dark side.

[hfojvt]

16. interesting theory

but still an ad hominem argument. Whatever his obsession is with Rachel, the question is whether the things he says are accurate or not.

And Rachel did, in fact, show an edited clip.

MSNBC as "the one true liberal channell" is a recent phenomenon. Somerby does not seem to think it is good for the liberal cause.

And we have sorta been getting our a$$es kicked since the 2008 election.

[One of the 99]

48. It's not a theory

And it has to do Somerby's motivation and credibilty. With all the distortions that come out of the right wing, why is he focusing on Maddow so much that he wrote 4 blog entries about her in the past week. And yet the best that he could come up with against her was that she edited out a small snippet of a clip that didn't disprove her main point.

[EC]

9. She went through charts

showing different occupations and comparisons of wages etc. too. She didn't just rely on the 77 % figure. She did show other percentages and how they were arrived at. Of all the figures the averages came to be about 72% to 77%, so the result wasn't that much different. I do notice though that the right has a way of picking out one figure and sticking with that to prove women are being dishonest in saying they are paid less, because there are other percentages, that THEY CLAIM ARE NOT BEING REPORTED, when in fact they are. (It's a method that Scientology uses to discredit people and arguements) Rachael DID report and show different percentages, she just settled on the 77% as the average, since it was the AVERAGE. She shows research to support her statements. So, no, I don't think she is being dishonest. Maybe the right doesn't know what average means?


But I do think slanting (spinning)her reporting is dishonest.

[Spazito]

10. I read your link and then watched the half hour segment of Rachel's show...

referenced in your link and after doing both, I find the blogger in your OP link is even more selective in the choices made to make the point he/she wanted to make on the blog.

I, in no way, felt Rachel Maddow was being dishonest in how she addressed the subject. One can try and quibble, I suppose, as to whether it is only discrimination causing the gap but the gap, nevertheless, is real and based on averages/aggregates.The key question is based on equal pay for equal work which means a woman doing the same work does not receive equal pay for 264 of the 265 occupations studied. One example used by those who want to obfuscate the gap is positing less hours worked by the woman than the man which is a red herring, imo. Women's hourly wage or salary levels are less than that of men doing the same work.

I find the blogger contemptuous toward Ms. Maddow throughout the whole piece, far beyond what one could expect if the REAL issue with the blogger was a difference in presentation on the percentage of the gap under study.

[HiPointDem]

17. the real issue is that once you adjust for differences in women's employment patterns, the

gap is reduced to almost nothing.

that doesn't indicate any pattern of paying women less per se, it indicates differences in pay in women-dominated fields, differences in women's work patterns (career breaks for child-rearing), differences in overtime work, etc. Rather than employer discrimination, you get something more ambiguous that is partly/mainly the result of choices women make "freely" within the existing culture.

[LiberalLoner]

21. The burden of bearing children still falls on women. Right now, only women can have babies. And

right now, most mothers devote more of their lives to their children, than fathers. I know there are exceptions and there are changes happening in our culture, but...it is what it is at the moment.

[HiPointDem]

25. Agreed. But that's a different issue than some kind of systematic discrimination by employers

to pay women less. Which is what Maddow implied by her method of presentation.

[Aerows]

39. It certainly happens

Do you know what everyone at your company makes? In many companies that is a highly taboo subject.

[HiPointDem]

53. "It happens" does not a pattern make. And what happens to upper-tier corporate workers

doesn't represent what happens to workers generally.

I have never worked in a job where there were not explicit job categories with explicitly stepped wages. No bonuses. If you wanted to discriminate against women you'd have to work at it. Basically the only way to do it would be to promote men over women into different job categories.

Now that may & probably does happen. But it wouldn't show up on studies like the one in the OP, which look at men & women in the *same* job categories.

And it probably happens for both women & men, as superiors in general (both women and men) tend to promote their cronies & favorites.

[Aerows]

59. Well

I've never worked a job where there were explicit job categories with explicitly stepped wages, so I can't speak for your experience, I can only speak for my own, which, you know, is exactly what I said in my post.

It happens, and it happens more frequently than you are stating. I'm a woman, so it's important to me. If you are a man, I can see why you wouldn't give a shit.

[HiPointDem]

67. and the fact that you've never held such a position speaks to a difference in our class positions.

because they are ubiquitous in the lower levels of the wage scale and in public sector jobs.

in the middle to upper ranges of the corporate world, much less so.

[Spazito]

28. No, I disagree...

The bottom line is women are paid less then men when doing the SAME work. We are not talking about overall earnings over a life time which would take into account time off for child-rearing, part-time work, etc. When a woman is doing the SAME work as a man she should be paid the same, whether hourly or salaried, and that is not the case.

One study used in Rachel's segment showed in 19 out of 20 occupations, both those most commonly occupied by men and those most commonly occupied by women, women get paid less. The study looked at the median weekly earnings.

In a study done by Bloomberg, 264 out of 265 occupations within the study, paid men more using the median salary.

Edited to add the link to Rachel's segment under discussion, it's well worth watching, imo:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#47240047

[HiPointDem]

47. the issue so far as the maddow report goes is that most of that difference can be explained

by differences in experience, skill, occupation, education or hours worked. As the quote Maddow used went on to explain. But she neglected to include that part.

Here's how the Census bureau does their comparison. They take a job category. They pull out all full-time workers and divide them into men & women. Then they average the incomes of both groups. That's how they get the "averages." The Bloomberg study is the *same* study using the *same* Census data, they just look at more finely-divided job categories.

The adjustments come in when you find that, on average, men in occupation X have e.g. more years of experience, work more hours, etc. And this is perfectly understandable because women are more likely than men to take a career break for child-rearing, to work fewer hours because of child-care responsibilities, to be supported by spouses for some period, etc.

This is not discrimination by employers, it's a cultural fact. It may be problematic but it's not the blatant discrimination Maddow keeps harping on.

I watched the clip. In the first half Maddow keeps beating at the 77% statistic in a completely black & white way. She spends several minutes talking about discrimination, especially by republican legislators, as if discrimination were the only relevant fact relating to these statistics & if non-discrimination in hiring and pay were not *already* the law of the land, at both federal and state levels.

When a male guest tries to talk about the adjustments, she cuts him off with her repetitious "women get paid less for doing the same work." But it's not so black & white as she insists, & she's smart enough to know that. So I call her dishonest on this matter.

In the second half she discusses the adjustments with a female guest, but in a quite dishonest way intended to blur the fact that adjustments reduce that 23% gap *significantly* and to leave the impression that blatant discrimination is the main reason for the gap.

To give you an example of the misleading way the adjustments are discussed, Dr. Hartmann refers to a GAO study and says "Even when you put everything into the regression analyses to make that gap go away, you still can't explain 20% of it."

The impression the casual listener will get is that even after adjustments there's still an inexplicable 20% gap. But that's not what the GAO study found. 20% of 23% = 4.6%, i.e. 5%. The portion of the wage gap that can't be explained = about 5%.

But most viewers will go away with an entirely different impression, especially after Hartmann & Maddow spend the end of the hour harping on discrimination.

Another fact: the lower you go down the wage scale, the smaller the wage gap between male & female workers. The "gap" is largest among the most privileged classes, and that also makes sense: because women in those classes are more likely to have the privilege of taking time off, then jumping back into their careers -- still at excellent salaries, though not as excellent as they would have had had they not taken the break.

Upper-class women are also most likely to work in the areas where pay can be fiddled to accomodate "stars". Much less the case in low-wage work and most public sector work. Or in low to mid-level women-dominated fields like child-care and teaching.

Maddow is an upper-class woman & the issues she is passionate about are those that reflect her class interests.

At the lower end of the wage scale, pay equality takes a back seat to low pay generally (for both men & women), job destruction, etc.

e.g. public sector workers and public school teachers are under attack, both sectors women dominated & with a higher percentage of minority women than others. How many times has Maddow done a good piece on these trends compared to her pieces on wage differentials, war on women, etc.?

I haven't watched her much, but I've never seen her focus on these kind of issues, or on specifically class issues.

[Spazito]

51. You are dismissing the equal pay for equal work....

If assistant A is doing their job as per the job description and assistant B, having the same job description, is also doing the same job, the pay should be equal. They work the same hours, have the same job description, should their pay not be the same as well?

The first breakdown was done on median weekly earnings, the second on median salary. They used different calculations ie median weekly earnings vs median salary yet both showed women are paid less for the same work.

As to the rest of your post, it is rather contemptuous, as is the blogger in the OP link,of Ms. Maddow and doesn't relate to the discussion of how the gap should be analyzed and reported, imo.

[HiPointDem]

54. The studies in question did not look at "assistant A" and "assistant B". They aggregated data

within broad job categories, then compared male and female averages.

I encourage you to look at the methodology of the study.

[Spazito]

57. In aggregate, they did....

an aggregate being:

"formed by the conjunction or collection of particulars into a whole mass or sum; total; combined: the aggregate amount of indebtedness."

You did not answer my question, maybe you missed it so I will repeat it:

If assistant A is doing their job as per the job description and assistant B, having the same job description, is also doing the same job, the pay should be equal. They work the same hours, have the same job description, should their pay not be the same as well?

[HiPointDem]

68. no, they averaged the wages of thousands of people in a broad job category. Like "manager".

Your question is stupid. No, I think their pay should be unequal, is that what you think i believe? I doubt you could find 5 in 100 people who believe such a thing.

Again, I encourage you to look at the methodology.

The fact is that the adjusted data comes closer to your example of "equal pay for equal work assuming equal hours/experience/qualifications". And the adjusted data shows the gap to be more like FIVE percent, not TWENTY-THREE percent.

But that doesn't make such nice red meat.

[Spazito]

70. Having read your other posts in this thread...

my discussion with you is at an end. It is clear it matters not what is presented to you, you will continue to support the vituperative blogger's position regarding Rachel Maddow, nothing is going to change your opinion.

[HiPointDem]

73. good. i didn't realize that *me* changing *my* position was the only possible reason to discuss

the problem.

evidentally you're incapable of seeing that one might discuss it to exchange information, to come to a wider understanding, or (i know it's inconceivable) that *you* might even change *your* opinion.

[kiva]

76. "the gap is reduced to almost nothing."

Five percent is not nothing. Over a lifetime of working 5 percent is a lot of money...heck, over the short time it's a lot of money, I know, I've taken that hit for the last three years.

Your perspective may be different, I think, from some other posters. I'm not married nor have a SO to count on for financial support - it's important to me (and to many others) that employers pay equal wages. I get that it may be less important personally for women who have male partners who make that extra five percent, but don't assume that only wealthy women are concerned about that five percent gap.

[hfojvt]

83. I think 5% is very relevant

Even if it is only 2 hours out of every forty.

When state budgets were being crunched, I suggested that the state could save by cutting state workers pay by 5% and giving them longer weekends. Let them go home an hour early on Friday and come in an hour later on Monday. It's not an awesome solution, but it's better than having the state lay of 5% of its workforce.

As far as upper class concerns. It does seem to me that it is the higher paying jobs where discrimination is more likely to take place. At the entry level, a person is hired for the same low pay, regardless of gender. One quote from the sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-mart struck me as funny that way. "Women store managers, he found, made an average of
$89,280 a year, $16,400 less than men."

Well, puh-leaze. That was from 2001. $89,280 a year is a sh*tload of money as far as I am concerned. I'd love to have a job making $45,000 a year even today 11 years later. $89,280 puts her in the 85th percentile even if she is single. If she has a spouse making 70% of her pay, she's in the TOP 5%. Well, down here in the bottom 20% we really do not care to fight very hard to make sure that people in the top 5% get more money. If I am fighting for anything, it is to reduce the salaries of the men by $16,400.

Even Lilly Ledbetter was making decent money. Not spectactular, but decent. Probably lots of men in 1998 would LOVE to have a job that paid $44,724. That's over 138% of what I make today 14 years later. By the inflation calculator $44,724 in 1998 is the same as 62,940 today! That puts her in the top 50% even if she doesn't have a well-paid spouse (and it always seems to me that people with good paying jobs marry other people with good paying jobs.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lilly-ledbetter/equal-pay-women_b_1434626.html

Yet she writes "how much my family had done without" when it seems likely that her family made more than 80% of the rest of American households. In 1998, only 18.2% of households made over $100,000 and she's almost halfway there with her salary alone. In 1998, 34.8% of households made less than $35,000. Should one of their top concerns be "making sure Lilly Ledbetter gets more money"?

[RZM]

13. You should always take these cable news hosts with a grain of salt

Same as the radio hosts. They all have agendas, they all are willing to fudge things a little, and they all want to maximize their own clout, influence, and earning potential.

That being said, I'm consistently impressed by Maddow's skill as a commentator and television host. If you were to strip away ideology and rank all of these hosts on the left and right in terms of effectiveness, she would score pretty high. She has the valuable ability to present relatively complex issues and ideas in simple, easy to understand terms.

[Pisces]

14. Your concern for the left is duly noted.

[HiPointDem]

19. maddow = "the left"?

[WilliamPitt]

20. You've been here four years

and you don't know well enough not to give hfojvt the whole 'Concern Troll' treatment?

Ugh.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Dude doesn't understand why the supreme court forbids mandatory school prayer, for one.

Wherever it is that he's coming from, I will say I think he genuinely believes it.

[Quantess]

50. If you don't want to call him a concern troll today,

another opportunity will arise soon.

[hfojvt]

84. I think he meant that I am worse

and posting to call me a concern troll, just kicks my thread. Hard to tell though, since he himself kicked my thread a couple times too.

[Ruby the Liberal]

18. Wow - what a nasty attack screed.

Seems to be more personal than anything else.

I can't believe you posted this shit here.

[WilliamPitt]

22. That was nasty?

Cool.

It must be getting better around here.

[Ruby the Liberal]

29. "Maddow is sold as a former Rhodes Scholar"

Yeah, I'd call that personal along with all of the other intelligence questioning and nefarious intent allegations at that link.

Its like he carved this 'wisdom' out in the dirt with a stick, IMO.

This cage liner sounds like it was reposted from Larry Johnson at No Quarter or some other bridge dweller.

[Larkspur]

24. The Daily Howler still exists?

His ramblings resemble that of a cranky old man headed into oblivion.

[mfcorey1]

27. If you are concerned, bring it to her attention. When she makes a mistake, she admits it. She

will also defend what she says when she is right. Email her.

[Ruby the Liberal]

31. Apparently, Joe Screed already covered that.

With the highest praise for Romney flunkie Alex Castellanos

Castellanos posted this piece at The Daily Caller. He apologized for interrupting Maddow; he said he truly does admire the passion she brings to her work. (“Maddow was offended when I complimented her on her passion. She found it condescending. I meant it as high praise and still do.”)

He continued to argue the facts of the case. He seemed to get some things right, seemed to misstate and overstate others.

How did Maddow react? She went on the air on Monday night, saying she still had no idea why someone would challenge her 77 percent statistic. Can Maddow really be that dumb? Do you believe what she said?

We have no ideas what makes Maddow tick—but this was an insulting performance. Maddow is sold as a former Rhodes Scholar. She said she had tried very hard to understand “the Republican position.”

We find that rather hard to believe. But this is a constant problem on the Maddow Show.

Maddow covers a lot of worthwhile topics—but you have to fact-check every word she says. When you do, the results are often bad.

With that in mind, here’s a question for liberals and emerging ditto-heads:

Do you believe the various things this self-adoring multimillionaire says?

[hfojvt]

86. Here's the thing.

She TELLS you that she admits her mistakes, and demonstrates it by admitting some mistakes. However, that does not mean that she admits all her mistakes. She is doing a marketing job. Here's how Somerby describes it (but he is not talking about Maddow).


"Sometimes, news orgs do self-correct: If their mistakes are sufficiently trivial, big news orgs do self-correct. With regard to the killing of Martin, the New York Times offered this self-correction on April 2:

CORRECTIONS (4/2/12): An article on Thursday about how Skittles, the candy Trayvon Martin was carrying when he was killed, has become a symbol of protest rendered incorrectly the name of a powdered drink that also became a symbol of protest after the cult leader Jim Jones laced it with cyanide to kill more than 900 people in Guyana in 1978. It is Flavor Aid, not Flavor-Aid.

Thank goodness they straightened that out!

As a general rule, big news orgs will correct their own mistakes as long as the mistakes are trivial."

http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2012/04/carr-wreck-does-press-self-correct.html

Correct a few mistakes, and always remind people that you correct your mistakes, and you can build a reputation as somebody who corrects their mistakes.

[hfojvt]

87. Do I?

Do you mean you want him to be more mainstream, like adamantly in favor of legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes? Mainstream like that?

[veganlush]

33. The gap is real

she's saying that the gap is there, which it is. that you can explain some of it as due to something less nefarious than intentional discrimination, this she does not deny, but the gap is there. That's the point, that the gap exists. Can someone show me where she declared that all of it was explainable as discrimination, and that anyone denying that was deluded?

Show me the quote where she says that, or fold up your tent and go home.

[WI_DEM]

34. more sincere than this Somerby that you quote.

[Dawson Leery]

36. Mr. Somerby belongs on Fox "News".

[JoePhilly]

40. My wife would not think you were sincere. I know that for a fact. See ...

My wife has worked in high tech for the last 20 years. We've had three kids and each time, she took basic maternity leave, 6 weeks.

During those 20 years, her male counterparts have always made more than she has. On 2 occasions, she has been asked to become the "acting director" of a large organization, no promotion, no pay raise. And then a male crony of the skip level gets the position.

She was asked to be "acting general manager" for a division at a large tech company, even though she was 2 levels down the chain. She ran it for about a year. Again, a man got the position. And he knew nothing about the business. She left, and 2 years later, that division collapsed.

Recently, her company asked her to lead their most strategic product line. She'd just saved a product area that was on its death bed. The men who lead the other product lines are 2 levels above her.

If you try to tell her that women don't make as much as men because of they take leave to have children, or for some other nonsensical reason, she will knock your head right off your shoulders.

Women know the reality. You (or Republicans) trying to tell them that they don't REALLY know the reality won't change that.

[Paladin]

42. If You Want To Trash Rachel, Take It To The Gun Control/RKBA Group.

At least you'll have some company. Not very pleasant company, but plenty of Rachel hatred.....

[CenaW]

43. Sincere is not the important question. Rachel is a paid employee of

one of the corporate propaganda organizations . . .. . called liberal MSM... it is not news.
She is allowed to point out the most egregious and supercilious people in government or business, but if by sincere you are asking, is she a liberal promoting liberal ideas.
I don't know if Rachel is liberal, but she is not promoting liberal ideas. . . .
Rachel promotes only liberal ideas that are not in conflict with
multinational corporate needs.
If she attempted to promote any ideas in conflict the needs of the corporate conservatives, she would last as long as Cenk did . . .
What rachel reporth on is researched and she does not present lies as facts. I appreciate that and her sense of humor.

[Mc Mike]

75. Does the Pope wear a funny hat? Nt.

[Bjorn Against]

77. I think there is legitimate debate to be had about the numbers

It is extremely difficult to calculate pay differences on a national scale as there are so many different jobs with so many different salaries. When you compare people you have to compare people who are in the same position with the same company for the same amount of time. Doing this on a national scale is incredibly challenging and I can see why there is a lot of disagreement over the numbers, but I don't think that Maddow is being insincere about her numbers I think she honestly believes they are correct and under certain calculations they probably are, other calculations show differently. There is no good way to get a perfect measurement of this statistic as there are just too many variables, I don't think Maddow is being insincere with her numbers nor do I think you are being insincere with yours.

I like Maddow, my only criticism of her is that she should cover citizen activism a lot more than she does.

[shcrane71]

78. Your posts makes no sense.

You state that the discrepancy between male and female wage earners isn't as great when one considers that:

1. Men may have more education.
2. Men work more hours.

That sounds exactly like what Republican's like Castellanos are saying. Do you remember when W and his minions blatantly lied to Americans in order to kick off the Iraqi war? Lies and obfuscation can also happen in the workplace regarding pay scale. It's difficult to believe in a meritocracy that merit doesn't equal higher pay, but it can happen. Of course, you wouldn't perceive any discrimination at play because you've said that you're against discrimination. I'm sure you've considered this topic from every angle, and you're being objective.

When ONE woman with a microphone has the nerve to try to get all the nice girls undies in a bundle about inequity, let's attack that ONE woman who is willing to raise her voice.

[Tennessee Gal]

85. Rachel Maddow is one of the smartest and most sincere people of all the political shows.

I watched that segment and sources of all kinds were presented and discussed.

Bottom line: Women are not paid the same as men for the same jobs. That is a fact.

[HiPointDem]

91. your blanket statement is not factual. and that's not even what maddow said.

equal pay is federal & state law. if you have evidence that some particular woman isn't being paid the same as a man in the same job category with equal seniority and qualifications, you should take it to court.

the study maddow cited said something different; it was about *averages*. and adjusting for differences in hours worked, years of experience, etc. reduced the gap to 5%.

that doesn't = "women are not paid the same as men for the same jobs." in fact, most women *are* paid the same, or the *average* gap would be much larger.

[annabanana]

94. She fell into "show biz" accidently.. Take a look at the

at her academic work and you will see what she cares about.