For the first time ever, the Left has encountered wide-spread skepticism on the bogus “equal pay” statistic it has been trotting out for years. I wrote about it today in my Politico column:
For all that the left still invests in the 77-cent factoid, the number is losing some of its potency. When gently asked in an MSNBC interview about the reliability of the pay-gap number, White House economist Betsy Stevenson confessed, “I agree that the 77 cents on the dollar is not all due to discrimination. No one is trying to say that it is. But you have to point to some number in order for people to understand the facts.”
There you have it: For people to understand the facts, you have to give them an easily misunderstood statistic with none of the necessary context and spin it in the most inflammatory, partisan fashion possible. Otherwise, how is anyone to understand the complex dynamics at work in interpreting disparities in pay between men and women?