Women's Media Center to Wall Street Journal: Print Fair Coverage of Fair Pay

On April 12, the Wall Street Journal decided to honor Equal Pay Day with an anti-fair pay oped. While Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Rosa DeLauro were reintroducing the Paycheck Fairness Act, WSJ devoted its pages to wage gap denialism, courtesy of Executive Director Carrie Lukas of the conservative Independent Women's Forum. Though the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics have calculated that women make 23 cents less on the dollar, the editors at WSJ didn't see fit to present a balanced editorial or even a companion oped to the inaccurate anti-fair pay complaint.

But the Women's Media Center isn't letting WSJ get away with this biased coverage, misrepresenting the issues women face when it comes to equal pay. They've launched a call to action to hold the WSJ accountable, including a Change.org petition telling the Editorial Page Editors to run "fair and balanced coverage" of the wage gap "in order to adhere to the high journalistic standards WSJ attempts to embody." WMC also helpfully suggests that there are "several members of the National Coalition for Pay Equity to choose from" in looking around for somebody who can provide an oped.

WSJ's editorial page is known for its conservative slant, but to publish the Lukas editorial, "There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap" as its sole Equal Pay Day coverage really tests the limits. I'll start with the end of her piece, where, after she believes she's "proved" the wage gap no longer exists, Lukas asks out-of-the-blue, "Should we celebrate the closing of the wage gap?" (Really, you're happy that men and women receive equal pay?) It should be a no-brainer that equal pay regardless of sex is positive, but not so for Lukas. She goes on: "Certainly it's good news that women are increasingly productive workers, but women whose husbands and sons are out of work or under-employed are likely to have a different perspective."

How does women receiving fair pay affect their husbands or sons unemployment? If the wage gap has really closed, these husbands and sons should be celebrating: their wives/mothers can better support them while they're out-of-work. I begin here because it's revealing of Lukas' agenda in composing this piece. Lukas is not an economist, nor is she particularly bothered by women facing a wage gap -- she's more concerned that "many American women wish they could work less." Trying to undermine feminist fair pay activism by dismissing the wage gap better suits her goals of preserving men as primary breadwinners while women bake bread.

For a breakdown of the severe flaws with Lukas' wage gap analysis, I turn to Echidne of the Snakes, a "minor Greek goddess" and economist specializing in applied microeconomics. She's previously written a dense three-part series on the gender gap and yesterday took on Lukas' WSJ editorial, which you should read in full for a more in-depth critique. Echidne promises to be "gentle with her arguments" because Lukas is not an economist, but still doesn't hesitate to nail the misrepresentations and inaccuracies.

For instance, Lukas asserts that the average man's workday is 9% longer than a woman's, concluding: "One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap." Except that economists "control for obvious reasons why earnings differ" -- in this case, by comparing earnings per hour rather than the "total pay packet," which Lukas is erroneously discussing.

Lukas' WSJ oped also claims that women "choose" to work in lower-paid industries, rather than being pushed into female-dominated occupations, because they have "other desirable job characteristics" like flexible hours or safety, so the wage they're getting is fair. But Echidne points out that even looking within industries and occupations, men make more than women. That pesky wage gap just keeps persisting, despite Carrie Lukas best attempts.

Concerned about the presentation of such misleading and error-ridden coverage on WSJ's editorial page? Sign the petition here to join the Women's Media Center in calling for fair play in fair pay coverage.

Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik