Women vs. men: Truths about the pay gap

New Year's Day is called that because it begins a new year, and Thanksgiving has that name because it's an occasion for expressing gratitude. But Equal Pay Day, observed this year on April 24, is named for something that, we are told, doesn't exist -- equal pay for men and women. The National Committee on Pay Equity used the occasion to announce that among full-time workers, women make only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. The three leading Democratic presidential candidates have all endorsed legislation to fix the problem. And the effort got new fuel from a report by the American Association of University Women's Educational Foundation, which says that women are paid less starting with their first jobs out of college, and that the deficit only grows with time. Pay discrimination, it says, is still "a serious problem for women in the workforce."
In reality, that's not clear at all. What we know from an array of evidence, including this report, is that most if not all of the discrepancy can be traced to factors other than sexism. When it comes to pay equity, we really have come a long way.

— Steve Chapman for the Chicago Tribune