Income Gap Seen for College-Educated White Women: The Forest and the Trees
February 12, 2005
The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I’m looking for the truth. And it goes away. Puzzling. - Robert M. Pirsig
A recent article in the Boston Globe, “Income Gap Seen for College-Educated White Women,” produces a story that is not understood by many who read it, nor [perhaps] the reporter who reports it and the editors who edit the story for fact.
The U.S. Census Bureau documents that white women with a bachelor’s degree earn $37,800, Asian women earn $43,700, black women $41,100 and Hispanic women $37,600. Clearly this documents that many minority women earn more than many white women.
The reporter notes that “Because study in the area is limited, it is hard to pinpoint specific reasons, said Barbara Gault, research director at the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research.” No mention of discrimination here. I wonder if the census bureau documented that whites made higher pay than minorities would there be suggestions that discrimination does play a role?
We don’t have to wait too long for that answer. A few paragraphs down, the same article notes that a white male makes $66,000 a year, Asian men $52,000, Hispanics $49,000 and blacks $45,000. “Workplace discrimination and continuing difficulties of minorities to get into higher-paying management positions could help explain the disparities among men, specialists say.”
The reporter and the newspapers editors are unwilling or unable to recognize they have received two different answers to the same question. When white women earn less it is “hard to pinpoint a specific reason.” When minority men earn less it is because of “workplace discrimination.” My head is spinning because they data has been spun.
This Census Bureau data actually documents that the pigmentation of skin and ethnicity often plays little to no role concerning how much people earn. If pigmentation of skin and ethnicity are important factors concerning earning less money, why are white women near the bottom of the earnings scale and Asian women at the top?
The reporter and the editors in this story do not question the “expert spin” and they ignore the realities this data actually reveals. The reporter, the editors and the experts are complicit in presenting simple and wrong answers. Now where else have I read empty headed, fluff stuff, that fly’s in the face of actually, factually, empirical data?
Oh!, that’s right! Honey, where is that newspaper story that reports that domestic violence is caused because of misogynist men and the patriarchy?
