Obama Hating the Wimminfolk!

CNS News jumped out today with a provocative article titled, Obama’s for Equal Pay, Yet Pays Female Staffers Less Than Males. In it we find a horrible tale of woe, where Obama (who “has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president“) has a lower percentage of female employees on his staff and they ear less, on average, than their male co-workers.

On average, women working in Obama’s Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator. That’s according to data calculated from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate, which covered the six-month period ending Sept. 30, 2007. Of the five people in Obama’s Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one — Obama’s administrative manager — was a woman.

This story was immediately picked up on by a number of McCain supporting outlets, such as Redstate, Macsmind, and (unfortunately) our good friend Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Sadly, this story has more holes in it than a a gross of donuts.

The first, and largest problem with the account is that there is no reference to the relative positions of the employees involved. How long has each been on the team? What experience and education did they bring with them at the time of their hiring? How skillful were they in negotiating their starting employment level? (and, following that, starting pay.) How many compensation reviews have they had?

You’re not going to pay your chief of staff, veteran of four other administrations, the same amount you pay the person who spellchecks the text submitted by your speechwriter. That’s only one of a limitless number of examples I could offer. I made a quick call to the Human Resources person at our consulting firm who told me that the odds of any group of employees that size winding up with the same average pay for men and women would be “virtually impossible.” In other words, either the men or the women will earn more, on average. In Obama’s group it seems to be the men. In McCain’s, the women.

From the Hot Air piece, the second complaint is brought to light, and none too subtly.

McCain, on the other hand, has more women in key positions — and the women on his staff average slightly higher salaries than the men:

Hold the phone and stop the presses. Have I just found the first Republican in favor of employment quotas based on gender? I thought we were all on board with the whole, “best person for the job, regardless of…” mantra? Yet the linked essay seems to imply that McCain is somehow superior to Obama for having more women in key positions?

Be still my heart!

e-mail the author: jazzshaw@gmail.com

UPDATE: Following up on e-mails and comments both here and in linked articles, a couple of points:

1. The figures we are a lacking here render any conclusions effectively meaningless. A better measure would be to look for any history of women complaining about unequal pay for equally responsible positions among the staff. Alternately, though it would be very hard to gather the information, we would need a comparison of the missing data on the employment history and starting conditions of each staffer.

2. Obama’s position on the “equal pay” question being bandied about is, in full, the “equal pay for equal work” complaint. You can’t really complain that the chief of staff is making more than a first year staffer who handles e-mails, even if they are of different genders.

3. The original linked article notes that McCain has more women in key, top positions. Combine that with their having a statistical majority… gee. Do you think their average pay would be higher?