What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

by Tim Urban

In another realm, the SJF narrative says that women are routinely paid significantly less than men for doing the same work. But the statistics this claim is based on—often cited as “77” or “80” or “83 cents on the dollar for the same work”—are highly misleading. Namely, the figure compares the median wages earned by all American women who worked full-time year-round to the median for all American men who worked full-time year-round. Under that crude calculation, the average working woman earns 82% of what the average working man earns. This number doesn’t account for specific occupations, positions, education, or a number of other relevant variables. According to the website Payscale, when controlling for “all compensable variables”—i.e., when comparing apples to apples—the gender wage gap drops dramatically, from 18% to 1%. Women earn 99 cents—not 77 or 80 or 83 cents—for every dollar a man makes, for the same work.