You Get What You Don't Pay For

On Meet the Press this past Sunday, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TX) said that women "don't want" Congress to get involved over equal pay, suggesting that women aren't especially interested in that.  Rather they just want to be acknowledged for their work.

There was no comment from Ms. Blackburn on the concept that she will get paid $140,000 for her job in Congress, compared to $174,000 of her male counterparts.

Much more than equal pay, the congresswoman noted, women just want to be given a job because they were the most qualified for it, not because they were a woman.  (Mind you, in an economy that has high unemployment, it's not unreasonable to think that a lot of women would just like to get hired, period, and worry about the reason for it later.)

"I think that more important than that [equal pay] is making certain that women are recognized by those companies," she said, adding, "Making certain that companies are going to move forward in that vein, that is what women want. They don’t want the decisions made in Washington. They want to be able to have the power and the control and the ability to make those decisions for themselves."

Right.  Because nothing says respect and power and control like being paid 20% less than what men doing the same job gets.

According to a study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women earned 80.9% of what men earned.   Over the course of a 40 years, the report says that the average U.S. woman stands to lose $443,000.

What woman wants laws that protects them from losing half a million dollars during their lifetime?