re: Elizabeth Warren tweet

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I would love to see this study. I remember reading it, but haven't been able to find it again.

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he 23% gap implies that women work an extra 68 days to earn the same pay as a man. Mr. Obama advocates allowing women to sue for wage discrimination, with employers bearing the burden of proving they did not discriminate. But the numbers bandied about to make the claim of widespread discrimination are fundamentally misleading and economically illogical.

In its annual report, "Highlights of Women's Earnings in 2012," the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that "In 2012, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings of $691. On average in 2012, women made about 81% of the median earnings of male full-time wage and salary workers ($854)." Give or take a few percentage points, the BLS appears to support the president's claim.

But every "full-time" worker, as the BLS notes, is not the same: Men were almost twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week, and women almost twice as likely to work only 35 to 39 hours per week. Once that is taken into consideration, the pay gap begins to shrink. Women who worked a 40-hour week earned 88% of male earnings.

Then there is the issue of marriage and children. The BLS reports that single women who have never married earned 96% of men's earnings in 2012.

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But of course, the 23% wage gap isn't true. The ratio is figured by taking the median pay for all female full-time employees and dividing it by the median pay for all male full-time employees. But not all full-time employees are equal. Men are more likely to work more than 40 hours, while women are more likely to work less. When that's taken into account, women earn 88% of what men make.

Then let's throw in other factors. Did the woman get married and have children? Women who have never been married earned 96% of what men earned in 2012. The National Center for Policy Analysis even found a wage gap the other way, "single childless women to single childless men, ages 35-43, the wage gap not only disappears, but instead becomes a wage premium."

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