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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Equal pay?

Here’s Barack Obama’s website on the issue of Pay Equity:

“Despite decades of progress, women still make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Throughout his career, Barack Obama has championed the right of women to receive equal pay for equal work.”

Here’s Obama, talking two weeks ago in Toledo about GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin:

“[She] seems like a very engaging person, nice person. But I’ve got to say, she’s opposed, like John McCain is, to equal pay for equal work. That doesn’t make much sense to me.”

And now, here’s the interesting part. Scripps-Howard columnist Deroy Murdock took a look at the Senate staff salaries of both Barack Obama and John McCain, thanks to LegiStorm, a nonpartisan watchdog service that offers the raw data to anyone who wants to dig through it. Guess what Murdock found?

Obama’s 28 male staffers divided among themselves total payroll expenditures of $1,523,120. Thus, Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397. Obama’s 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average … on average, Obama’s female staffers earn just 83 cents for every dollar his male staffers make …

McCain’s payment patterns are the stuff of feminist dreams. McCain’s 17 male staffers split $916,914, thus averaging $53,936. His 25 female employees divided $1,396,958 and averaged $55,878. On average, according to these data, women in McCain’s office make $1.04 for every dollar a man makes.

Can anyone think of a living American feminist icon who’s not openly supporting Barack Obama? Just wondering.

(thanks to deceiver.com)

more insteresting facts can be found at http://factcheck.org/

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