The Gender Pay Gap Persists In The United States

 This chart is from the Pew Research Center.

117th Congress Is More Diverse And More Educated

 The charts above are from the Pew Research Center. They show the 117th Congress is more diverse and more educated than previous ones.

Polls Agree The Gender Gap Is Real In This Election

Fox News Poll

Economist / YouGov Poll

NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist Poll

Morning Consult Poll

Civiqs Poll

The different polls may disagree on how much of a lead the Democrats have, but there is one thing they all agree on -- that there is a huge gender gap in this election. While men prefer Republicans in many polls by a small margin, women prefer Democrats by a much larger margin.

That would not be good for Republicans if men and women voted in equal numbers. But it is worse for them than that. Women have voted in larger numbers than men for quite a few elections now.

Supreme Court Approval By Gender And Party

These charts are from a recent Gallup Poll -- done between September 4th and 12th of a national sample of 1,035 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.

It shows that the Supreme Court has a job approval of only 51% -- far lower than it used to have.

And the approval shows big differences by both gender and party. While 60% of men approve of the job being done by the court, only 45% of women approve. And if Kavanaugh is put on the court, we can expect the approval by women to drop even further.

The approval by party is even wider. About 67% of Republicans approve, while only 36% of Democrats approve.

It's The Gender Gap That Should Worry GOP Candidates

Donald Trump again attacked the "Me Too" movement in a recent rally. Evidently, he doesn't think Republican candidates need women's votes in the coming election. He's wrong, and his continued war on women and women's issues should worry the hell out of Republican candidates this year.

There is a huge gender gap in the party preference for the 2018 election. Women prefer Democratic candidates by 16 points. Men prefer Republican candidates by 6 points. That would spell trouble for Republicans if men and women voted in equal numbers, but they don't. For past elections for at least a couple of decades, women have voted in larger numbers than men -- and that is true of all age groups. It is very likely they will again vote in larger numbers this November.

There are some safe districts for Republicans, but the number of competitive districts is growing -- and women could tip the scales toward Democrats in those districts. The Democrats only need to flip about 28 districts to seize control of the House of Representatives, and there are 50 to 60 districts now considered competitive.

These charts reflect the results of a recent Pew Research Center survey -- done between June 5th and 12th of a national sample of 1,608 registered voters, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

Hispanic Women Suffer Huge Gender/Ethnic Pay Gap

The charts above and the post below are from the Economic Policy Institute. The article was written by Elise Gould and Adriana Kugler:

November 2nd is Latina Equal Pay Day, the day that marks how long into 2017 a Latina would have to work in order to be paid the same wages as her white male counterpart was paid last year. That’s just over 10 months longer, meaning that Latina workers had to work all of 2016 and then this far—to November 2nd!—into 2017 to get paid the same as white non-Hispanic men did in 2016. Unfortunately, Hispanic women are subject to a double pay gap—an ethnic pay gap and a gender pay gap. On average, Latina workers are paid only 67 cents on the dollar relative to white non-Hispanic men, even after controlling for education, years of experience, and location.

The wage gap between Latina workers and white non-Hispanic male workers persists across the wage distribution, within occupations, and among those with the same amount of education. Figure A above shows wages for Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men at select points in their respective wage distributions. The 10th percentile Latina wage identifies the wage at which 10 percent of Latina workers earn less while 90 percent of Latina workers earn more. At the 10th percentile, Latina workers are paid $8.53 per hour, or 85 percent of the white male wage at the 10th percentile ($10.03 per hour). This wage gap—15 percent—is the smallest the gap gets, likely due to the wage floor set by the minimum wage. The gap rises to 41 percent at the middle of the wage distribution, and to 55 percent at the 95thpercentile. That means that even the best paid Latinas are paid half as much as the best paid white non-Hispanic men.

Latinas are, thus, vastly over-represented in low-wage jobs and relatively under-represented in high-wage jobs. In fact, Latinas’ median wages are just above those of white men’s 10th percentile wage. In other words, nearly halfof all Latina workers are paid less than the 10th percentile white male worker. Meanwhile, by comparing the white male median to the 80th percentile Latinas’ wages, you can see that more than half of white men are paid over $20 an hour while fewer than 20 percent of Latinas are. At the high end, only 1-in-20 Latina workers are paid more than white male workers at the 80thpercentile.

Much of these differences are grounded in the presence of occupational segregation. Latina workers are far more likely to be found in certain low-wage professions than white men are (and less common in high-wage professions). But, even in professions with more Latina workers, they still are paid less on average than their white male colleagues. Figure B shows the average wages of Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men in the ten most common occupations for Latinas. In every one of them, white men, on average, are paid more than their Latina counterparts.

Since Hispanic women continue to be over-represented in low-wage jobs, policies that lift wages at the bottom will have a significant impact on their wages. An increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 would affect more than 1-in-5 Latina workers.

While some (incorrectly) argue that Latinas are choosing lower-paid professions, further education clearly does not close their sizable wage gaps with white non-Hispanic men. Figure C shows average wages for white men and Latinas in 2016. As Hispanic women increase their educational attainment, their pay gap with white men actually increases. The largest dollar gap (more than $17 an hour), occurs for workers with more than a college degree. Even Hispanic women with an advanced degree earn less than white men who only have a bachelor’s degree. That statistic bears repeating. White non-Hispanic men with only a college degree are paid, on average, $7.53 more than Latinas with an advanced degree!

Regardless of their place in the wage distribution, their level of educational attainment, or their occupation, Latinas are paid less than their white male counterparts. The ongoing gender and ethnic discrimination faced by Hispanic women means that ten months into 2017, Latinas finally reach the same typical pay as non-Hispanic white men earned last year. That means that over a 30 year span, Latinas would have to work another 25 years for them to earn the same over their working life as non-Hispanic white men.

There is a lot of work to be done to improve the standard of living for the families of Latinas. More educational attainment and access to better quality education would certainly help to improve the Latinas’ chances to move up the job ladder and get better paid jobs. However, this is not the whole story, since even after controlling for education the wage gap remains very large. Offering and facilitating access to occupations that are higher paid will also move Latinas up the occupational ladder. Here too, however, we find that even within the same occupations, Latinas fare worse. Lastly, it is important to improve equal pay for equal work provisions so that those women who do have the same education, the same occupation and are equally qualified in the workplace are not paid less or driven away from moving up to these more challenging positions.

Today Is "Black Women's Equal Pay Day" In The U.S.

Today is "Black Women's Equal Pay Day". What does that mean? It means that for a Black woman in this country to equal the pay of a White man in 2016, they would have to work all of 2016 and the first seven months of 2017. In other words, it takes a Black woman 19 months to make the same pay that a White man makes in 12 months.

We know that a gender gap exists in this country in pay. Women, in general, simply don't make salaries equal to men -- but Black women do even worse than White women do when it comes to that gender gap in pay. And if you'll not the bottom chart above, Hispanic women do the worst of all, making even less than Black women.

There are those who will tell you the gaps exist because they don't work as hard, don't have the same education, or choose lower paying jobs. Those are all myths (and you can go here for a good discussion of them). The truth is that even when those are accounted for, the wage gap still exists.

Whether our leaders want to admit it or not, and wage gap exists in this country -- and it is due to gender, race, and ethnicity. It shouldn't exist, but it does -- and it's time we did something about it. Anyone who does the work should receive the same pay -- regardless of their gender, race, or ethnicity. Anything less is an abomination in a country that claims to value equality.

There Is A Large Gender Gap In The United States

These charts are from a survey by the Pew Research Center -- done between April 5th and 11th of a random national sample of 1,501 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

The top chart shows the percentage who say they have confidence in the future of this country. Note that in 2017, there is a much larger gender gap on this question than there was in 2015. In 2015, the gap was only 4 points between men and women. That gap is now 24 points. Women are far less confident in the future under Donald Trump than men.

And that gender gap shows up in both political parties. The Democrats had a 4 point gap in 2015 -- and that has grown to 18 points in 2017. The Republicans had a 7 point gender gap in 2015, which has grown to 28 points in 2017.

The bottom chart shows the gender gap in a different way -- the presidential job approval among men and women for the last six presidents during April of their first term in office. Trump does worse than any president among both men and women, but he does far worse among women. The job approval gender gap for Trump is 13 points -- with women showing 33% approval, and men 46% approval.

This huge (and growing) gender gap bodes ill for the GOP in 2018 -- and for Trump in 2020.

The Gender Difference In The 2016 Presidential Election

One of the biggest problems that Donald Trump has in this campaign is the gender gap. Far more women support Hillary Clinton than men who support Donald Trump. Clinton has a 24 point lead among women, while Trump has only a 6 point lead among men.

Note that all demographic groups among women support Clinton, while only seven out of the thirteen groups among men support Trump (while one group is tied and five groups support Clinton). This is very bad news for Trump, since in the past several elections women have voted in significantly larger numbers than men.

NOTE -- This Pew Research Center survey is about a month old, but I think any movement that has occurred has been toward Clinton and away from Trump in both gender groups.

Democrats & Republicans Don't Trust The Same Media

In light of the Brian Williams mini-scandal, Public Policy Polling did a survey on the media. They found the public split on what should happen with Mr. Williams -- with 39% saying he should be able to return to his job, 36% saying he should be fired, and 25% saying they are not sure what should happen.

But an even more interesting aspect of this survey was the major broadcast media that is trusted by different groups in our society. It is easy to see why the Republicans and Democrats remain so far apart on the issues. A majority of Democrats trust a wide range of media to get their news, but Republicans trust only Fox News as their source for news (an organization that is far more interested in propagating right-wing politics than reporting the news fairly). Independents don't have a majority trusting any broadcast media (but come the closest to trusting PBS with 43%, while no other media even gets to 33%).

There are also differences in what media to trust between genders and races/ethnicities -- and the charts concerning those are shown below.

The Public Policy Polling survey was conducted between February 20th and 22nd of a random national sample of 691 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.7 points.

Congress Is Still Predominantly Male, White, And Christian

The United States Constitution guarantees all citizens equality under the law, but that has never been a reality. Every little bit of equality gained by racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities, women, and others outside the establishment has been won only with a long and hard fight -- and more still needs to be done before we realize that dream of true equality.

One reason, perhaps the major reason, why true equality is still not a reality is because our elected officials have always been predominately white, male, and christian. It should not be any surprise then that those elected officials would pass laws that generally support their own kind (white, christian males), while only tossing crumbs to others every now and then.

And if you thought the new 114th Congress would be any different, then are are sadly operating under a delusion. The new Congress is pretty much like all the Congresses in the past -- dominated by whites, males, and christians (see charts above). That means the continuing fight for equality has not gotten any easier.

Growth Of And Need For College Student Loans (20 Years)

The Pew Research Center has compiled information on student borrowing for college over the last twenty year. They got their information from the National Center for Education Statistics. As college has become more expensive, more students are graduating with student loan debt -- and that includes large segments of both genders and all income groups. The charts below show this growth.