The Public Policy / Women's Worth

...In Washington, D.C., where power is everyone's bread and butter, the Post's Judy Mann is busy informing us that "labor unions, the Democratic Party and women's organizations are now supporting comparable worth standards...

...And why is that...

...Sessions July 17 to July 30 (I) July 31 to August 13 (11) Use coupon below to write for the brochure of the Program...

...But if they are not, a new group will join the permanent underclass of Americans who cannot legally obtain employment...

...Nevertheless, considered as economic aggregates, working women and working men do not receive equal pay...

...a What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order...

...real target," according to Cornell economist George Hildebrand, is "federal intervention into the occupational wage and salary structure on a very large, and possibly even massive scale...

...Readings Federalist Papers, Constitution, Solzhenitsyn Plato, Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, Sir Gawain Beowulf, Flannery O'Connor, Victor Frankl, Bible Staff Robert Augros, Ph.D, University of Laval Mary Mumbach, Ph...

...First, comparable-worth laws will do for women' (and a few men) who enter the labor market through traditionally feminine jobs what mini mum-wage laws have done for minority teenagers: it will price them out of the labor market...

...Teaching and medicine are prime examples...

...consumers might switch to other, less expensive goods and services...

...Merrimack, NH 03054 Tel...

...By overlooking the more fundamental problem-that of collecting the "data," the information about supply and demand for goods and services, which is scattered throughout the economy in isolated bits-they will wreak havoc with the economy, and in, so doing wipe out many of the more positive contributions of the feminist move ment...

...Senator Howard Baker, always a favorite with the press, might be tough, but not Reagan..In any case, there was a clamor among Democrats to get Carter off the top of the ticket...

...The more I heard, the more I knew I had been wrong in assessing the debate...

...On this point, there is some evidence that comparable-worth regulations and other feminist social engineering just cannot be imposed on an entire economy over any significant length of time...

...Most men make demands on their wives' time and energy that prohibit women from committing themselves to their careers as fully as male workers in the same field...

...F-1 THE PUBLIC POLICY WOMEN'S WORTH c tComparable worth" rules are a new feminist proposal to use regulation to achieve equal incomes between men and women, by legally mandating that "male dominated" and "female dominated" occupations judged to be of equivalent difficulty by state or federal agencies be paid equally...

...Labor unions today support minimum-wage laws, restrictions on immigration, tariffs, and trade quotas as a means to protect themselves from competition...

...Economist Thomas Sowell (in Affirmative Action Reconsidered) reports that unmarried female academics earn slightly more than unmarried male academics...

...Any such shift will involve a transfer of power concerning wage bargaining from millions of employers who know the particular jobs and employees involved to a small number of federal bureaucrats who do not have this information...

...Today comparable worth is being considered in Montgomery County, Maryland, and elsewhere, but the Bruce Powell Majors has written for Inquiry, the Washington Times, and other publications...

...But does this mean that the Equal Pay Act and other antidiscrimination laws have failed (assuming that they were ever needed...

...If we possess all relevant information, if Sarkes Tarzian Inc...

...But they sure didn't learn this from reading the paper or watching TV news...

...To date comparable-worth rules have been instituted-at a cost of over five million dollars annuallyfor city workers in San Jose, California, and the idea of "comparable worth" was cited in a recent sex discrimination case-at a cost of $52 million-against a major airline...

...But the fundamental error in the feminist thinking is the belief that "value" is "given" by a central person or groupthat the price of services like cleaning or computer programming is set conclusively and that "wf" can change it, without any ill consequences...

...If working women are lucky, "comparable worth" will remain words...

...Virtually every caller was knocking Carter mercilessly, notably for his comment about Amy and nuclear proliferation...

...Millions of women are shunted into the lower-paying, less prestigious fields...

...This is not to say that feminist organizational leaders do not believe in comparable worth-only that they have to believe in it...

...603) 880-8308 Parents' Name Address Telephone City State Zip Student's Name Age THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1983...

...This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society faces...

...I thought so too...

...rrr•rrrrrrr•••rr••rrrrrrrrrr•rr••rr•rrrr•rr•rr••rr••r•r••••r...

...The feminist answer, given to us by Washington Post columnist Judy Mann, is that "jobs requiring strength and endurance were given more value than jobs requiring tact or patience...

...In industry, women work mostly in the light, consumer sector where, according to Soviet studies, pay and all other benefits are well below those in heavy industry (where men predominate...

...There is a clamor among Republicans for assurance that he will run again...

...Virtually every reporter I know thought Carter whipped Reagan in their debate...

...Researcher Helen Astin's study, "Career Profiles of Woman Doctor by Bruce Powell Majors ates" (in Academic Women on the Move), presents evidence that unmarried female academics become full professors faster than unmarried male academics...

...In farming, women provide the core of the low-paid, unskilled field hands while men operate the machinery and get better pay...

...On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough...

...Because of uncertainties about the profitability of investing in a new ERA campaign, the National Organization for Women and other feminist organizations realize they must have a program to put forward to attract new members and contributors-if they are to continue to exist...

...Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, noted that comparable worth would result in "reducing employment either because employ ers shift to alternative, less laborintensive methods of production or [if the new labor cost were paid and passed on] because...

...Supporters of comparable worth believe that the economic problem consists of nothing more than achieving their "system of preferences," i.e., uniformity in men's and women's incomes...

...Feminist poet Adrienne Rich, herself a socialist, asked in a recent book, "How much does this really have to do with capitalism, and how much with the system which . . . predated capital ism and survived under socialism -patriarchy...

...In 1939, the median income of women who worked year-round was 58 percent of the median income of men...

...And it will join under an old and familiar name: "housewife...

...But Adrienne Rich lives near Cambridge, where political power is often merely an object of contemplation...

...Bloomington, Indiana 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1983 we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic...

...Clearly, this answer is wrong...

...Perhaps most indicative of the situation nationwide, one major Soviet economic study drafting a working-class family budget assumed that the husband would earn 50 percent more than the wife...

...Just the opposite is happening now with Reagan...

...0 Thomas More Collegiate Summer Program For High School Students Designed to introduce collegiate materials to high school students and recent high school graduates, the Summer Program is a concentrated two-week study of the great questions of the age in the light of the Western and American traditions: the nature of true freedom, the purpose of our political society, the nature of heroic action, the life of a Christian in a troubled, secular age...

...After watching the debate, I was driving to Philadelphia and listening to Larry King's call-in show on the radio...

...D, University of Dallas Peter V. Sampo, Ph.D, University of Notre Dame Living Arrangements On campus...

...As for the Democratic party, its platform, like that of the Republicans, is rather often composed of empty words, meant only to appease some special-interest group...

...Computer programming and engineering, two relatively male-dominated fields which pay well, require patience...

...Consider the following evidence: *The 1973 Economic Report to the President contained a section on "The Economic Role of Women," which revealed that women in their thirties who had worked continuously since high school earned slightly more than men in their thirties who had worked continuously since high school...

...In short, there is a good deal of evidence that single women and men with similar work experience do earn equal pay...

...As a rule, voters and politicians, unschooled in nuances of seeing the future as they may be, have a better grasp of the political drift than reporters do...

...That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use of available means is implicit in our assumptions...

...Close supervision...

...Peter V. Sampo Thomas More Collegiate Summer Program One Manchester St...

...These are practically at the bottom of the pay and status scales and these are the professions in which women are most heavily represented...

...The reason for this is that the "data" from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society "given" to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given...

...Such considerations have led some feminists to question whether the problems that concern them can simply be solved by governmental social engineering...

...This according to figures offered at a recent congressional hearing by Dr...

...The fear is that without him, the party loses, even to former Vice President Walter Mondale and especially to Senator John Glenn...

...Many working women will think they are being "liberated" by feminist social engi neering, only to find that they are losing their jobs to machines, as school teachers are replaced by com puter terminals, nurses by monitoring equipment, and waiters and waitresses (and restaurants) by fast food enterprises...

...Daily recreation...

...Reasonable fees...

...And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve the logical problem does not provide an answer to it...

...In 1981, despite passage of the Equal Pay Act and other antidiscrimination laws, women earned 59 percent of the median income of men...

...Noble laureate -Friedrich Hayek exposed this error in his classic essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society": There is opportunity in America...

...Third, the studies by economist Thomas Sowell and researcher Helen Astin cited earlier reveal that for most couples marriage advances the hus band's career and inhibits that of the wife...

...Housework and its commercial equivalents, customarily female-dominated fields, are not paid very well, yet do require some strength and endurance...

...This is hardly an argument that comparable worth will benefit women...

...Hedrick Smith returned from the USSR, a country that combines near-complete control of the economy with a nominal commitment to women's liberation, with the following report: In Russia, equal pay for equal work is an accepted principle, but getting the equal work is the problem...

...Labor unions in Britain during the industrial revolution and in the United States during the Progressive era supported protective labor legislation and the "family wage" system in order to drive female competition out of the labor force...

...Politicians sensed in 1979 and much of 1980 that Carter's prospects were not so good for reelection, though most every reporter in Washington figured that Carter would at least be able to beat Reagan...

...in October 1980...

...Second, if women have nothing to lose by staying in jobs requiring skills that many workers have (and hence consumers do not value highly), they will have no incentive to move into traditionally male-dominated fields...

...Comparable worth tells the woman entering the labor force not to worry her pretty little head about a challenging career...

...Janet Norwood, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics...

...Because the jobs women go into do not pay as much as the jobs men go into...

...Republican politicians know that Reagan is on a roll, his political strength building...

...single men and women in the same field and of the same age have equal incomes...

...The main victims of comparable worth will thus be women, who will be affected in at least three ways...

...Visits to ocean beaches, mountains, and to the Freedom Trail in Boston...

...The "need" for comparable-worth regulation is based on the following statistics...

...Were comparable worth regulations actually to be enforced, they would work as a subsidy to this traditional marriage, by abolishing the wife's incentive to demand more domestic equality-the higher wages earned by tired or distracted women workers would provide them with (false) information that they were in fact successfully combining marriage and career, even when their husbands had not changed their behavior...

...Labor unions in California in the early part of this century supported the institution of laws against smoking opium and other practices peculiar to Chinese workers...

...A 1981 report of the National Research Council, prepared under contract to the U.S...

...Stripped of the jargon, Rich is coming dangerously close to posing the heretical question of whether feminist values are not best attained by private and voluntary means...