It's Time To Get Serious About Gender Equality

Yesterday (April 2nd) was Equal Pay Day for women in the United States. It was the day that the average woman worker would have to work to after working all of 2018 to equal the average man's pay for just 2018. To put it another way, the average woman worker must work slightly over 15 months to make what the average man makes in 12 months.

And if you break it down further by color or ethnicity, it is even worse for many women.

Asian-American Women -- March 5th

White Women -- April 19th

Black Women -- August 22nd

Native American Women -- September 23rd

Hispanic Women -- November 20th

All of these statistical dates are shameful for a country that prides itself on equality. The truth is that women and men are not treated equally in the United States. Pay is just one of the ways where it is the most obvious.

This is indefensible. If the United States practiced what it preaches, then Equal Pay Day would be December 31st of every year.

If Education Is Important Why Pay Teachers So Little ?

Most adults in both political parties understand the importance of education. It prepares our future leaders and workers to assume their place in our society. And almost all elected officials have campaigned on improving education. Why then, do we not pay our teachers a salary commiserate with the importance of the job we give them? We require them to have a Bachelor's degree (and encourage them to get a Master's degree), but we don't pay them the salary they could get with those degrees outside of the teaching profession. That is true in every state, and ridiculously so in many of the reddest states.

Here is what Sylvia Allegretto at the Economic Policy Institute says about this:

Following West Virginia’s lead, teachers in Kentucky and Oklahoma are walking out and demanding change, while teachers in Arizona are considering doing the same. Some teachers say students who participated in the March for Our Lives actions across the country inspired them to speak up. But the tipping point goes deeper than that. Teachers have finally had enough. Why? Because teachers across the country have watched their states make dramatic cuts to investments in schools, students, and teachers—often while those same states implement tax breaks for individuals and corporations.

Teachers are concerned with a range of issues, from books and supplies to safe buildings. And they are burdened by growing pay inequities. Over the last two decades, teachers are contributing more and more toward health care and retirement costs as their pay falls further behind. Teacher pay (accounting for inflation) actually fellby $30 per week from 1996 to 2015, while pay for other college graduates increased by $124. In short, the teacher pay gap—the difference between what teachers earn in weekly wages compared with similarly educated and experienced workers—has widened significantly. Even when accounting for benefits, the teacher compensation gap increased by 9 percentage points, to 11.1 percent over that same time frame.

Teacher pay gaps vary considerably across the United States as indicated in the figure.1 The figure below shows within-state ratios of public school teachers to other college graduates. The ratio for the overall United States is 0.77, meaning that, on average, teachers earn just 77 percent of what other college graduates earn in weekly wages. Arizona (0.63) has the lowest ratio (the largest pay gap), while Wyoming (0.99) has the highest ratio (the smallest pay gap).

Not surprisingly, striking teachers live in states with some of the largest pay gaps. In Arizona, teachers earn just 63 cents on the dollar compared with other college graduates. That gap is 79 cents in Kentucky, 67 cents in Oklahoma, and 75 cents in West Virginia. These gaps amount to vast differences in earning over a career. It is not surprising that there are teacher shortages across the United States as college students, especially women, choose other professions. In 18 states, public school teacher weekly wages lag by more than 25 percent. There is no state where teacher wages are equal to or better than those of other college graduates.

Teachers are acutely aware that students are the future of this country. Yet we are not able to adequately prepare our greatest assets, our students, if we don’t adequately invest in our teachers. It’s little wonder that strikes and walkouts are occurring now. Given the trends in pay and benefits, many more teachers may soon be joining the picket lines.

In The Real World

Some of you may think the above graphic is a bit over-the-top. I don't. It just illustrates in a real way just how much trouble many Americans are having.

The median household income in the United States is about $50,054. And remember, that is household income, not individual income. That means that at least half of all American households exist on less than $50,054 in income each year. That might not be so bad, but the problem is that far too many American households don't make anywhere near that much money each year.

In fact, about 25.06% of all American households make less than $25,000 a year. Let that sink in. One-quarter of all American households must survive on less than half of the country's median income. But it gets even worse. Millions of households must exist on minimum wage or less (about $15,000 a year). The percentage of households existing on less than $15,000 a year is a whopping 13.52% of all households (2011 Census Bureau statistics).

Considering these shameful statistics, is it any wonder that at least 20% of American children are being raised in poverty? Now some of you may be thinking that these people existing on minimum wage or less are just too lazy to work -- but that is not true. Most of them work hard at full-time jobs, but just aren't paid a livable wage. And anyone who thinks $15,000 a year is a livable wage should have to live on that for a year -- that would bring them to their senses in a hurry.

Unfortunately, too many members of Congress think the minimum wage should not be raised -- especially the Republican members. In fact, many of those GOP members of Congress would like to abolish the minimum wage and force workers to try and support their families on even less that $15,000 a year.

Of course these members of Congress don't have to support their families on a minimum wage salary. Most of them are millionaires, and even those few who aren't make about $174,000 in salary plus some very generous benefits. That salary alone puts them in the top 5.91% of household incomes.

How can a politician making a taxpayer-paid salary that puts them in the top 6% of income earners oppose raising the minimum wage to a decent level (about $10.10 an hour, or about $21,000 a year)? That raise would certainly not be exorbitant for a hard-working person. It would still leave them making far below half of the nation's median household income.

There is simply no excuse for paying a full-time worker a poverty wage (i.e., a slave wage). And any politician who opposes raising the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour (and tying that wage to the inflation rate) should be voted out of office this November.

NOTE -- Maybe we should consider tying the salary of members of Congress to a multiple of the minimum wage -- something like capping it at 7 or 8 times the minimum wage. That means they could not raise their own salary without also raising the minimum wage.

Public Thinks Congress Is Overpaid

Recently, one congressman complained that he couldn't afford to buy his own insurance without help from the government, because he had to get by on a salary of only $174,000 a year. The poor jerk better hope his constituents don't hear about that, because the chances are that most of them already think he makes too much money.

That's what a new survey by Public Policy Polling shows. That survey was done on September 25th and 26th of 790 registered voters, with a 3.5 point margin of error. This doesn't really surprise me, since those in Congress make nearly four times the median salary of the citizens they represent (and that doesn't count the money they get for expenses or the generous retirement plan). And their recent action in shutting down the government, putting over 800,000 federal employees on furlough w/o pay (at least until the shutdown is over) while continuing to receive their own salary, is certainly not going to change any public opinions.

The top chart doesn't show what people think Congress gets paid, but what they think Congress should get paid. And it's a lot less than what they are paid. Note that 87% of the general public thinks Congress should be paid less than $150,000 a year (instead of their current $174,000 a year salary) -- and that cuts across all political lines (including 83% of Democrats, 88% of Independents, and 92% of Republicans).

Those are overwhelmingly large percentages -- and it would probably be a good idea for Congress to stop playing political games and start earning their salary (by fixing the economy and creating jobs to begin with). Right now, people see them getting a large salary to strut around and act important while the economy goes down the tubes.

In fact, most people don't think those in Congress are worth even $100,000 a year. Those who think Congress should make less than $100,000 a year comprise about 66% of the general public (or about 2 out of every 3 Americans) -- and that includes 64% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 72% of Republicans.

Don't Expect Congress To Give Back

(Image above is from the website called InlandPolitics.com.)

Recently a new series of drastic cuts to all government discretionary programs went into effect (called the "sequestration" cuts). This will affect everything the government does, and will particularly hurt the Americans who are already hurting due to to Republican recession. Almost everything will be cut -- education, food stamps, school lunch programs, aid to the poor and disadvantaged, environmental cleanup, veterans programs, Headstart program, salaries of government workers, and many other areas.

I say almost everything, because there is an area of government that is immune to the drastic cuts -- the salaries of elected officials. Amazingly, those salaries and benefits are exempted from the cuts that will be felt by other Americans. The president has stepped forward and voluntarily is giving back to the government 5% of his $400,000 salary (or about $20,000 a year). It's not a huge amount (and he certainly won't have to do without any essentials), but it does show that he understands that if all other Americans are expected to cut back, then elected officials should do the same.

Don't hold your breath for anyone in Congress to follow the lead of the president and return some of their salary back to the national treasury. Congress doesn't mind cutting money that hurting Americans depend on to live, but they aren't about to share any of the pain -- in spite of the fact that they make about four times the income of the average American (and work less than anyone with a full-time job).

However, most of the people in the general public believe Congress should share in the pain though. A new survey done by the Gallup Poll (done on April 6th and 7th of 1,025 nationwide adults -- with a margin of error of 4 points) shows that this is the view of about 8 out of 10 Americans. And this feeling cuts across party lines. Here are the percentages who believe Congress men/women should return at least 5% of their salaries:

General public...............78%
Democrats...............77%
Republicans...............82%

But Americans would like to see an even deeper cut of congressional salaries than that (which probably reflects the high unpopularity of Congress right now). Here are the figures from the same three groups who believe Congress men/women should return at least 25% of their salaries:

General public...............79%
Democrats...............79%
Republicans...............79%

Don't expect this to happen though. Most of those in Congress think they are better than other Americans, and shouldn't have to share the pain they so easily deal out (even though most are rich enough they wouldn't even notice a 25% cut).

Superintendent Salaries In Texas Schools

Here in Texas there is a funding crises for our schools. Even though Texas leads the nation in the percentage of drop-outs (nearly 30%) and is last among states in the amount of money the state provides for education on a per pupil basis, the Republican-dominated legislature wants to slash from $5 to $9 billion from education funds. This would mean that thousands of school employees (especially teachers) would be laid off and classroom sizes would be increased -- insuring a drop in the quality of education that Texas students would receive.

Some Republicans have countered that too much money is spent on school administration and this should be cut. They do have a small point on this, but cutting in this area wouldn't even come anywhere near equaling the amount of money the state wants to cut from education funds. In fact, all school administrators could be fired statewide, and it wouldn't equal the billions in cuts the Republicans want to make.

Having said that, I do think some superintendent salaries are pretty large. After all, these are public jobs -- not jobs in private industry (like corporate CEOs). Here are some of the superintendent base salaries of some of the larger school districts, compiled by the Texas Tribune:

Alief ISD...............$245,000

Arlington ISD...............$235,000

Austin ISD...............$275,000

Beaumont ISD...............$347,834

Cypress Fairbanks ISD...............$250,000

Dallas ISD...............$300,000

El Paso ISD...............$280,314

Fort Bend ISD...............$260,339

Fort Worth ISD...............$315,000

Houston ISD...............$300,000

North East ISD...............$296,105

Northside ISD...............$270,000

Plano ISD...............$291,716

Spring Branch ISD...............$295,000

And these salaries would be increased each year by the same percentage as the raise given a teacher (which would be a much bigger raise than the teacher would get in actual dollars) and includes full benefits (like health insurance).

Now these aren't anywhere near what CEOs in private industry get (multi-millions of dollars), but they are generous for a public employee -- over a quarter of a million a year in most cases. Of course these are the largest districts and many small rural districts don't pay their superintendents anywhere near these salaries.

It wouldn't hurt these districts to cut these salaries a bit before laying off any teachers (and some, like the Dallas superintendent just voluntarily cut his own salary by 5%). Still, all administrative salaries in the state don't add up to the money some Republicans are claiming is wasted on administrative costs. The fact is that the draconian cuts the legislators want to make to education would be very hurtful to the students in this state, and all the crying about administrative waste can't change that.

There is simply no excuse for the cuts being proposed for education in this state. Our schools are already falling behind the education systems of many other countries, and if we expect to keep up in this age where education is becoming more important every day, then we cannot keep cutting education funds and expecting fewer teachers to do more with less funding. It just won't work.

Executive Salaries Are Way Out Of Line

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been keeping up with the economic news that corporate executive salaries and compensation are way out of line, especially when compared to the salaries of workers in the same company. And it does not seem to matter whether those executives are successful or not. Those who oversee company failures make millions of dollars -- even the ones who are forced out of their jobs (but you can bet that no ordinary company worker is given any "golden parachute").

One would think that a company that has had to lay off thousands of workers (a sure sign the company is having trouble) would also cut the salaries of the executives running those companies. But that has not happened. In fact, it's beginning to look like those workers were laid off so the executives could keep their enormous salaries.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in their annual report on executive compensation, the "CEOs of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crises took home nearly $12 million on average in 2009." These companies laid off 531,363 people while reporting a 44% average profit increase in 2009.

But whether a company is in trouble or not, corporate executive salaries have been skyrocketing while the salaries of workers have been depressed by those same executives. The IPS says:

"[A]fter adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century.

American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s."

There is no logical reason for executive salaries to rise that much while worker salaries have gone down. All employees are valuable to the success of a company (or they wouldn't be working for the company). Why shouldn't worker salaries rise at the same rate as executive salaries? Shouldn't all company employees, regardless of rank, share in the company success they helped to create?

Another way of looking at the outlandish salaries of American corporate executives is to compare them to the salaries of Japanese corporate executives -- a country where corporations have been exceptionally successful. According to the IPS, American executives make 263 times the average compensation of their workers (up from 30 to 1 in the 1970's). Note that is the average compensation, not the minimum compensation of workers. In comparison, Japanese executives make only 16 times as much as their average worker.

Many American corporations would like for us to believe they have to pay these outrageous salaries to executives while laying off workers and depressing worker salaries. They claim they could not get top executive talent otherwise. That's simply a giant load of horse manure! The Japanese don't seem to have any trouble attracting good executives. Their corporations are performing at least as well (and sometimes better) than American corporations.

Don't get me wrong. Japanese executives are well paid for their efforts. But so are their workers. They simply believe that all employees should share in a corporation's success, and not just the executives. And that formula has worked well for them and created a company loyalty among all employees -- a loyalty that furthers the success of the company.

American executives have simply abandoned the idea of fair treatment of their workers. They have bought into the "greed is good" philosophy and are grabbing every dollar they can -- even if they have to abuse their own workers to do it. This is not just unfair, but has been a big contributing factor to the huge income disparity in America between the top 5% and everyone else, setting up the conditions for our current recession (and future recessions if it is not fixed).

Since it has become obvious that corporate executives and corporate boards are either unable or unwilling to rein in corporate salaries (and institute a more equitable and reasonable worker-to-executive salary ratio), the federal government should step in and place a limit on that worker-to-executive salary ratio. What that ratio should be can be debated, but it is necessary to put a limit on it. It is necessary for the health of the overall economy.

I know that many will scream that is "income redistribution" and income redistribution is bad -- some would even label it as socialism. What these people fail to realize (or are unwilling to admit) is the fact that income is being redistributed every day in America (and in all countries under all economic systems). The problem is that in our largely de-regulated capitalist system this money is being redistributed from workers and ordinary citizens to the richest among us, creating a wildly unbalanced and unhealthy income and wealth distribution.

I'm sure this limiting of worker-to-executive pay ratio will be fought by the corporate interests. That is because they are today only interested in short-term profits, and not the long-term health of the country and their companies. The truth is that the corporations would benefit from a more equitable income distribution as much as workers would. While they might have to pay their own workers more, they would reap the benefits of all the nation's workers having more money to spend -- which means more money to buy the corporate products.

"Income redistribution" is not a bad thing. It happens every day. It just needs to happen in the right way -- a way that would be positive for everyone.

Unchecked Corporate Greed

By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- Three corporate executives called in for a shaming by Democratic lawmakers Friday defended raking in hundreds of millions of dollars despite contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis that has their companies reeling from losses and the nation on the edge of recession.

"There's a complete disconnect with reality," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

But the CEOs testifying before the committee, Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp.; Stanley O'Neal, formerly of Merrill Lynch & Co; and Charles Prince, formerly of Citigroup Inc.; defended their pay as appropriate.

"As our company did well, I did well," said Mozilo, founder of Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender and a key player in the subprime problem. "But when our company did not do well, as in 2007, my direct compensation and the value of my holdings declined materially, which is as it should be."

Republicans on the committee generally agreed. "This is a hearing in search of bad guys," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. "All of you complied with the transparency rules and the best practices rules."

The hearing was the second held by Waxman on the issue of executive pay, which Forbes magazine said averaged $15.2 million for the CEOs in the largest 500 U.S. companies in 2006, an increase of 38 percent in one year.

My God! Can you believe this? These fools are responsible for kicking thousands of Americans out of their homes and destroying the equity value of millions of other homes, and they think they deserved to be paid multiple millions of dollars. Personally, I think they deserve to be sharing a jail cell in a federal prison.

With the minimum wage being the unlivable pittance that it is, I don't think ANY CEO deserves to be paid this much. With salaries like this for management, is it any wonder that the cost of everything is going up? And please note, the Republicans on the committee see nothing wrong with this.

Many of these companies are laying off employees, cutting salaries and cutting benefits, but the management salaries just keep climbing into the stratosphere. It is not only wrong, it is inexcusable!

I have said before that management salaries should be tied to the worker salaries, and I still fervently believe that. For instance, the salary of a CEO should be capped at no more than 35 times that of the lowest paid worker. This would tend to rein in corporate extravagance, raise worker salaries, and help keep product prices low.

I'll probably get some people telling me this would never work and would hurt our poor corporations. But if you really believe that, then you've got your head up your ass. The Japanese already do this, and their corporations are doing very well. In fact, they are outperforming many American corporations.

Everyone, management and workers should make a decent and livable salary, but we must stop the current corporate greed. It is destroying our country.

Wages In Texas Not Up To Par For Many

The federal poverty level for a family of four is $20,650. But will this meet the basic needs for a family of four in Texas? Not according to the Center for Public Policy Priorities. This Austin-based non-partisan group did a study to find how much income would be required to meet a family's needs.

They found that a family of four would need from $10,000 to $25,000 more than the official poverty level figure depending on what part of Texas they live in. A family in Brownsville would need $29,982, while a family in Fort Worth would need $45,770.

Even worse, these figures assume the families had insurance provided by an employer, paid no more in rent or house payments than what local housing subsidies would pay, never ate out and rarely ate meat. That sounds like subsistence living to me.

At least one-third of Texas families do not come up to these levels. Hell, a huge portion of our state employees don't even make those kind of salaries. This is what we are left with after years of Republican leadership. While our corporate and government leaders are doing better than ever, salaries for workers have stagnated and left them in an ever-worsening condition.

The Republicans in our state and national leadership don't seem to care about working families. We must dump these people in the next election, and put some people in office that will see that workers get their fair share of the economic pie.

Listed below are the salaries a family of four would need to meet basic needs in various Texas cities:

Abiliene - $32,674
Amarillo - $33,757
Austin-Round Rock - $43,640
Beaumont-Port Arthur - $32,499
Brownsville-Harlingen - $29,982
Bryan-College Station - $38,557
Corpus Christi - $37,429
Dallas-Plano-Irving - $43,723
Fort Worth-Arlington - $45,770
El Paso - $36,508
Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land - $43,028
Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood - $34,522
Laredo - $33,300
Longview - $34,466
Lubbock - $34,245
McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr - $34,624
Midland - $33,103
Odessa - $32,222
San Angelo - $36,527
San Antonio - $40,826
Sherman-Denison - $38,697
Texarkana - $34,313
Tyler - $36,274
Victoria - $37,026
Waco - $34,312
Wichita Falls - $33,505