The Daily Signal - #552: The Wage Gap Myth Debunked

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

The gender wage gap is all but assumed to be true in the media, pop culture, and our universities. But the truth is different from what you hear. In today’s episode, we feature an interview from our Problematic Women podcast between Lauren Evans and Heritage Foundation labor expert Rachel Greszler. In that interview, Lauren and Rachel unpack the myth of the wage gap and how it’s now being featured in a new Monopoly game—miseducating our kids. And, speaking of miseducation, a major doll company just released a new line of gender-neutral dolls. We also cover these stories: Transcript of Trump phone call shows no explicit quid pro quo, but raises questions Democrats react, calling it "classic mob shakedown" and "a smoking gun" Benjamin Netanyahu tapped to be Israeli prime minister again if he can form government The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, September 26. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Daniel Davis. The gender wage gap is all but assumed to be true in the media, pop culture, and our universities, but the truth is different from what you hear. In today's episode, we'll feature an interview from our problematic women podcast between Lauren Evans and Heritage Foundation labor expert, Rachel Gressler.

In that interview, Lauren and Rachel will unpack the myth of the wage gap and how it's been featured in a new money. monopoly game, miseducating our kids. And speaking of possible miseducation, a major doll company just released a new line of gender-neutral dolls. My co-host Rachel and I will discuss. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Capitol Hill erupted Wednesday after the release of a highly anticipated transcript of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The transcript itself did not contain any explicit quid pro quo or a promise of U.S. aid money in exchange for dirt on Joe Biden, as had been alleged. But speculation continues as to what went on behind the scenes. President Trump defended the phone call on Wednesday. The way you had that built up that call, it was going to be the call from hell. It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said, I never knew you could be so nice. He also accused Democrats of abusing their power with Ukraine in 2016.

There's no pressure whatsoever. And if you take a look at the Democrats, they went down to see the president of Ukraine. And they asked him for all sorts of things and don't go with the Republicans and stay with us. And like it's a political war, they shouldn't have done that. That should be an impeachable event, I guess, based on what you're saying. The Democrats just came out. They went down there, a group of people. some of whom I was dealing with in the gun issue, and they went down, put tremendous pressure in Ukraine.

The president himself... The transcript revealed President Trump talking about how the U.S. had been, quote-unquote, very good to Ukraine. He noted that it hadn't necessarily been reciprocal and then pivoted to request a favor. The president intimated that he wanted Ukraine to look into, quote, the server, likely referring to the server containing Hillary Clinton's deleted emails, which he said he heard was located in Ukraine. He also mentioned Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm that investigated the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee. The president also spoke of wanting to connect the Ukrainian leader with Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, and William Barr, the U.S. Attorney General.

And then toward the end, he brought up Joe Biden and how, as a vice president, he had pressured Ukraine to stop the prosecution of a Ukrainian oil tycoon. The key fact there is that Biden's own son sat on the board of the oil company in question. In recent days, President Trump has called attention to that fact and raised questions as to the ethics of Biden's actions. The key upshot from the transcript is that it's not clear whether Trump was conditioning aid money on Ukraine's decision to investigate Biden. What we do know is the president put a hold on that aid money prior to the phone call and then release the money a few weeks later. Democrats are lambasting President Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president, with California lawmaker Adam Schiff calling it a, quote,

Classic Mob Shakedown. Schiff tweeted that, quote, The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown. We do a lot for Ukraine. There's not much reciprocity. I have a favor to ask. Investigate my opponent. My people will be in touch.

Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her. End quote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also decried the call, saying the release of the transcript, quote, confirms that the president engaged in behavior that undermines the integrity of our elections, the dignity of the office he holds in our national security. The president has tried to make lawlessness of virtue in America and is now exporting it abroad, end quote. Republicans were somewhat split on the transcript.

Senator Mitt Romney called the transcript, quote, deeply troubling, but Senator Lindsey said the transcript was, quote, a nothing burger. Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, is asking Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new coalition government and be prime minister yet again. That move gives Netanyahu 42 days to try to piece together a coalition government from amid disparate factions. If he fails, the president will then select the next candidate, he thinks, can most successfully form a government. These negotiations come after Netanyahu was unable to reach an agreement for a broad unity government with his rival. Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White Party. Netanyahu's Lakud Party reached a stalemate with the Blue and White in last week's close election.

Support for socialism among Democrats is growing. A new study from the Cato Institute found that 64% of Democrats support socialism up from just 56% three years ago. Currently, only 45% of Democrats support capitalism. That's down significantly from 58% support in 2016. The study, according to the article in the Federalist, also found that, quote, 84% of Americans believe it's not wrong for people to make as much money as they can honestly. And 69% of respondents agreed that billionaires earn their wealth by creating values for others. Up next, we feature an interview from problematic women on the myth of the gender wage gap. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation.

We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. Welcome back. Today we have such a treat for you on problematic women. We have Rachel Gressler, Research Fellow, from the Heritage Foundation in studio. Rachel spends a lot of her time thinking about the so-called wage gender gap and our economy as well. The so-called gender wage gap made headlines yet again this week, with actress Michelle Williams bringing up the highly debated issue during her Emmy Award acceptance speech for outstanding lead actress in a limited series or movie.

Take a listen. Thank you so much to FX and to Fox 21 Studios for supporting me completely and for paying me equally because they understood that when you put value into a person, It empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value, and then where do they put that value? They put it into their work. And so the next time a woman, and especially a woman of color, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white male counterpart, tells you what she needs in order to do her job. Listen to her.

Believe her. Because one day she might stand in front of you and say, thank you for allowing her to succeed because, of her workplace environment and not in spite of it. So Rachel, let's start basic. Does this gender wage gap actually exist? Well, there is a so-called gender wage gap. And what that is, is it's a statistic if you look at all men, all women across the U.S., who are employed full-time.

It shows that men make about a dollar for every 80 cents that women make. So it looks like there's about a 20-cent gap there. But that pay gap doesn't take into account anything that employers actually factor in when they're setting people's pay. So what it doesn't include is what is the individual's education, how many hours are they working, what is their experience, what career field are they in? Do they have a flexible work schedule? All these things don't come into play. But then when you do some economic analysis and actually try to compare apples to apples jobs, you find that there's a very small pay gap, if any. So the Department of Labor study found that a more accurate comparison shows about a five to seven cent gap.

And that's a 2009 study. A more recent study from last year found a mere two cent gap. And even that doesn't take into account some of the things that I think women tend to value more, such as a flexible schedule or more generous benefits. And one specific thing that William said is that women of color make 52 cents on the dollar compared to their white male counterpart. Does race also play a factor in this? I think at the end of the day, we all want people to be paid based on their performance

and based on what they bring to the table. And so if there is a difference in pay that exists across different genders or different races, we need to look at the source of that. Are there gaps in educational opportunities? And we shouldn't be trying to equalize pay across genders or across races, because what that ultimately does is it takes away the choices that people are able to make. in deciding what field of study they're going to go into, what hours they're going to work, what occupation.

So someone who supports Michelle Williams would say she's the perfect person to be talking about this because when she was on a movie, all the money with Mark Wahlberg for reshoot, so after they shot the movie and they did shoot some scenes over again, her co-star, Mark Wahlberg, was paid $1.5 million per day, while Williams was only paid $1,000. So supposedly these deals were both worked out independently with their agents.

Do you think the producers looked at Michelle Williams as a woman and said, I'm going to pay you this much less? Or do you think there was something in the negotiations that was happening? No, I think this is kind of a unique instance. And we're talking about Hollywood where the figures are big. And this is just simply a failure of Michelle Williams agent to negotiate a higher pay level for her. And after the speech you heard, the audience made up of mostly wealthy celebrity, they were just applauding.

Does it rub you the wrong way? Do you think they're just virtue signaling or do you think they're actually wanting to solve this issue? Well, that's what I wonder. If Michelle Williams really wants to help people who are being discriminated against or who have lower incomes, whatever that reason is, then what is she doing? Is she giving her money away? She giving her time away. And I think that time is actually a really more important thing for people to do.

So are the people that care about this actually doing anything to try and solve what they see as a problem. And what are those policy issues that we can be doing to help women? Well, I don't think that federal policymakers or state and local policymakers need to be stepping in. You know, I look at the huge gains that women have made over the past decades in the labor force and not just in the jobs that they've been able to attain, whether it's climbing to be, you know, the CEO of a company. But look at the mom who's selling things on Etsy and just the choices and opportunities

that women and men alike have today, there's so much more available to women in the labor market and they can do things that fit them at any stage in their life and they have opportunities that just simply didn't exist before. And so I think we need to be trying to enact policies that continue to let that flexibility exist, not doing things like California did last week to implement a law that basically tries to wipe out the gig economy

and anybody who's an independent worker. What does that do to the millions of women there? who rely on whether it's a gig job or their own independent business to say that you can't work anymore unless you become a formal employee and answer to a boss. And the gig economy is a phrase that's been thrown out as a buzzword a lot. Can you explain to our audience what that actually is? The best way, you know, think about a gig economy, everybody looks at Ower, TaskRabbit, these things that are classified as a gig that you can pick up on your own time based on what works for you.

You don't have to take the job if you don't want to. but it's really bigger than just, you know, the big companies we know of Uber, TaskRub, et cetera. It's Etsy. It's also independent workers. If you have your own contracting company or if you're an independent truck driver, it's all these year a janitor, a construction worker that goes and works for multiple different companies. These are all independent gig type jobs that would be affected by legislation that tries to make everybody answer to a boss. So the idea would be like, let's say a mother has children at school. from nine to three, she could find something that works in that time period or maybe like after

her kids go to sleep. Exactly. And she can do it during school. And if her kid's six, she doesn't have to do the job that day. These are completely optional jobs that are just there. You download the app. You choose whether or not you want to do it in a certain day. Or it's also the jobs you have your own company and you're in charge of the work and you choose which contracts that you want to sign and agree to perform a certain job or not. And I think that's so fast. fascinating because these are mostly jobs that have been created not through government legislature or any policy makers, but this is, you know, now that you have an iPhone, it's so easy to order goods and services. Yes, it's the technology and innovation that's driving these job growth. So let's say you are a woman, and I know some women are in this of space of feeling like they are paid unfairly. What would be your advice to them? Like I said, we want to be paid for what we're worth. And so I think the advice is just to,

prove your worth. And there's also something to be said for having confidence in yourself and being able to negotiate. Studies have shown that women will rate themselves lower on things than men, and whether that's men being overcompetent or women being underconfident, you know, somewhere in between, but having that confidence and also being willing to go in and negotiate for what you feel your worth. That's probably the best advice that I got as an intern in D.C. Never say sorry for something that you're not sorry about and never feel bad about bragging about yourself. And my colleagues would probably laugh because I love bragging about myself. But, you know, I think so I think that's such good advice of really make sure that first you value yourself. So then your employers value you. I want to shift gears to another interesting topic that's been in the news. Miss Monopoly. It's the first board game where women make more than men. Can you kind of tell us what is Miss Monopoly and how does it vary from the original monopoly? Yes, I love the original monopoly. I remember playing it growing up and I think it's got great life lessons in there about finance. But this new Miss Monopoly, so it's really unfair playing rules is what it's all about.

It gives women a 20% advantage. Every time that they pass go, they collect $240 while men collect only $200. You wrote this really great piece on Heritage.org where you discuss what would happen when your kids would play this game. You have three girls and three boys. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So my kids actually have started playing Monopoly recently. And immediately I thought about how would they take this?

the girls would be like, oh, this is great, I get an advantage. The boys would be angry that they had this advantage and probably poking jabs at them along the way about the fact that they're only winning because they've got that extra $40 every round. And so, you know, what happens in the end? Well, suppose the girls do win and they're feeling excited that they beat their brothers. But they're just going to stand there and say, you only won because the rules were unfair and the boys are going to be resentful and the girls aren't going to feel good because they feel like, oh, I didn't win really. I had to have an edge up in the game in order to beat my brothers. And then what if the boys win? Well, then now the girls feel really bad because even with that advantage,

they couldn't beat their brothers. And so that pumps the boys up even more to say, I could beat you even when you had a head start. I mean, I just think that this engenders resentment and pride, and it just says there is an equality there when we don't want to be teaching our girls or our boys that they are going to be paid differently just because of their gender. We want them to think that they will be treated. equally. We see all these adults and celebrities fall into this trap of believing the gender wage

gap and this board game is targeted towards children and it does have good intentions in a way of we want to empower women and it empowers women as scientists and inventors. But as a mother, what do you think about this idea of like almost brainwashing our children to believe this from a very young age? I think it's unfortunate that so many people take this victimization mantra that they're teaching their children or men or women, I'd rather have us talk about the games that women have made and how everybody is treated equally in this country. It's not that way around the rest of the world. And so what I tell my daughters and my sons is look at what you can do, not you as a girl or you as a boy, but just look at what you can do and the opportunity

and the freedom that you have here. Rachel, last question, the gender gap is so easily debunked, but I know when I'm out with my friends who might not be political or might not lean conservative, they just, they'll bring it up kind of in passing. What's like a short elevator pitch that you can give to a young woman when someone just mentions like, oh, I'm only getting paid 73 cents on the dollar? I think I would tell them to, you know, if you really believe you're only getting 73 cents on the dollar, what can you do about that? I would go talk to my boss and I would prove to them, hey, here's my value and why am I not being paid for what I'm producing. But in terms of, is there really a gender wage gap and what will be the consequences of enacting policies, we got to think

through what this really looks like. If you try to create rigid pay scales, that's not going to help men or women. It's going to be one size fits all jobs that actually don't meet most workers' needs. Well, Rachel, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Thank you. What the heck is trickle down economics? Does the military really need a space force? What is the meaning of American exceptionalism? I'm Michelle Cordero. I'm Tim Desher. And Every week on the Heritage Explains podcast, we break down a hot button policy issue in the news at a 101 level. Through an entertaining mix of personal stories, media clips, music, and interviews, we help you actually understand the issues. So do this. Subscribe to Heritage Explains on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts today.

The toy making company, Mattel, is out with a new line of dolls that are breaking all kinds of gender norms. The new dolls are gender-neutral, meaning kids can customize them by dressing them with pants, skirts, long hair, short hair, or any combination that they choose. According to Fox Business, the company's vice president, Kim Colmon, said, quote, Toys are a reflection of culture, and as the world continues to celebrate the positive impact of inclusivity, we feel it was time to create a doll line free of labels. Through research, we heard that kids don't want their toys dictated by gender norms, end quote. and she went on to say that this line of dolls allows kids to express themselves freely. So, Rachel, I never actually played with dolls growing up in 90s because back then that wasn't really a thing you did as a boy.

And I didn't even play with G.I. Joe's or action figures, which sent me apart from some of the other boys. But, you know, growing up as a girl, how would you have responded to this kind of doll? I think I would have been a little bit creeped out. I did play with dolls as a kid. And I mean, it's something like girls want to play with dolls. I know this because I was a girl. I have two sisters. And this is just how the inherent nature of girls is.

Like we want to mother. We want to pretend like these are our kids. We want to feed them and dress them. And to produce dolls that basically say, oh, I'm not a man. I'm not a woman. I'm not like a boy or a girl. Number one, that's confusing. And number two, it's just creepy.

Like, that's not what kids gravitate. too. They don't want some genderless, what even is this kind of a, like, you know, asexual doll person here. They want to be able to, you know, hold their little baby girl or baby boy and dress it in, you know, pants and a tie or dress it in a shirt and bows and stuff like that. So I would have been creeped out. I think it's interesting to that the company's vice president said kids don't want their toys dictated by gender norms. That just sounds like a whole bunch of PR to me. Because obviously young kids know exactly.

They interviewed three and five year olds and said, do you want your dolls dictated? Do you want gender norms here? They're just woke three-year-olds. They know all this stuff. Oh, exactly. So I find that to be a little bit fishy that she's saying that kids have told her through research that they don't want their dolls dictated by gender norms.

Yeah. It's interesting that they're saying that this isn't, you know, shaping the kids. It's just that this is what the kids want, you know. This is a. response to demand in the market, at least that's what they're saying. And that's interesting, because this is like the first time that kids have thought this way. But, you know, when you were playing with dolls growing up, did those dolls actually inform the way you thought about femininity and masculinity? Or was it completely that you were bringing those concepts to your

dolls and imposing them? I think it's more of just a natural reaction to how, you know, boys and girls and especially girls playing with dolls, how we are as like children, like little women, you know, becoming actual women. Right. And seeing that we have this natural desire to mother and to protect and to nurture. And I think that's a natural response. And, you know, I know myself playing with dolls and my, you know, siblings and cousins and other people.

Like, it's just something that's natural. And if you were to see some genderless doll on, you know, a, store shelf. It would just be weird. Like, what is this even? So the dolls shaped the way you viewed gender? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's like, you look, oh, is this a boy or a girl? And that's the first question you ask, right? Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. So basically, these new dolls are going to have an impact on kids that you used it. Oh, 100% without a doubt. Get them to think in different ways. Well, we will leave it there for today. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. Brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud,

please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. See you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.