Unfair ‘Paycheck Fairness Act’ Shafts Workers With Hazardous Jobs

We wrote earlier about the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill of Orwellian deception that would result in employees unfairly receiving equal pay for unequal work.  It would force some employers to pay employees with dangerous or unpleasant jobs as little as employees with safe and pleasant jobs — as long as the different jobs have different gender breakdowns (that is, if one job is performed mostly by men, and the other job mostly by women — even if the employer does not discriminate in hiring at all, and eagerly hires qualified applicants of both sexes).

Now, it turns out that a lobbyist pushing this disturbing bill met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on September 21, suggesting that the bill may be brought to the Senate floor in the next few days — and that there may be a major push to pass it.  (The Obama administration misguidedly supports the bill; the administration often gets the most basic facts wrong about discrimination and Supreme Court rulings dealing with sex discrimination.)

Labor economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth explains why this bill is a bad idea in The Washington Post.