“President Obama has called for creation of a government wide strategy ‘to address any gender pay gap in the Federal workforce.'" Eric Yoder of the Washington Post noted in a May 14 article. That's all well and good, but nowhere in Yoder's story did he consider that there's a pay disparity problem in the White House and in Senate Democratic offices, according to investigations by the Washington Free Beacon.
Michael James at our sister site CNS News.com reported March 15 that:
On Tuesday night, Democrats showcased Lilly Ledbetter as she attacked the Republican Party in general and GOP presidential nominee as out-of-touch with women and not committed to closing the so-called gender wage gap. It seems the partisan Ledbetter ignored or is blissfully unaware that female Democratic senators are egregious offenders when it comes to equal pay for their office staff. Will the liberal media do the fact-checking or the context-providing that needs to be done in reaction to the Ledbetter speech?
As part of her hour-long August 20 special edition of Now about to "women's issues," MSNBC's Alex Wagner devoted a 10-minute-long segment to the so-called pay gap -- women earning on average 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. Wagner's guests, Salon's Joan Walsh, Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Lilly Ledbetter predictably did their parts to help Wagner sell the pay gap issue as one with Republicans in the dark ages and Democrats as the white knights. "Why are Senate Republicans still fighting legislation to account for that gap and to make pay equal," Wagner asked Warren at the start of the segment.
But alas, the so-called pay gap is a "a solid statistic" that has been "described incorrectly" in anti-Republican attack ads, Politifact noted back in June (emphasis mine):
Back in May, a handful of Senate Democrats attempting to open a new offensive front against Republicans in the "War on Women" introduced The Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA). "Democrats cited statistics showing that women today are still paid 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, or $10,784 less a year on average. That’s the equivalent of 183 tanks of gas or 92 bags of groceries," Politico's Matt Wong helpfully noted in a May 23 story.
One day later, the conservative-leaning Washington Free Beacon, published an article which exposed how the very same Senate Democrats out in front on the PFA were egregious violators when it came to a pay gap among members of their own congressional staffs. Reported Andrew Stiles:
NPR's Tamara Keith forwarded the "war on women" talking point of Democratic senators on Tuesday's All Things Considered as she reported on their proposed Paycheck Fairness Act. Keith spotlighted how "the bill's author...Senator Barbara Mikulski from Maryland, points out women earn just 77 cents for every dollar made by a man in the same position. She says that's the real war on women."
However, the correspondent omitted that several cosponsors of the bill actually pay their female staffers less than male staffers. She also slanted towards the liberal politicians by playing three soundbites from them, versus only one from a Republican senator.