Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Pay gaps still exist, including in academia; news at 11

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Who says income inequality is no more? (Ignorant fools, that’s who.) Here’s a chart from a new report by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce showing the average discrepancies between men’s and women’s pay depending on their academic credentials:

Chart: “MALE AND FEMALE EARNINGS BY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT” showing that “Male” earns nearly 25% more than “Female” across all degrees; annotations: “Women have to have a PhD to make as much as men with a BA” and “Men with some college but no degree earn about the same as women with a Bachelor's degree”
(Hover over chart for description)

As the report notes, pay inequality doesn’t only exist in between the sexes:

The findings are stark: Women earn less at all degree levels, even when they work as much as men. On average, women who work full-time, full-year earn 25 percent less than men, even at similar education levels. At all levels of educational attainment, African Americans and Latinos earn less than Whites.

You mean that the United States still has a pool of ingrained, semi-institutionalized bigotry deep down inside that prevents people of equal merits from earning the same rewards for their efforts? Gosh, wasn’t this supposed to be some new age where discrimination and inequality didn’t exist anymore and that the only one to blame for your lack of monetary benefits is yourself? Why, I’m just shocked.

Egalitarian and post-racial, indeed.

(via Pharyngula)