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The Gender Pay Gap Is Still About 21 Cents Per Dollar

by ChassidyX94 Posted on April 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Today is Equal Pay Day, so let’s break down the numbers for the gender pay gap. According to an up-to-date study by Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, the current wage gap for annual earnings is 21 cents: On average, women earn 79 cents for every dollar a man earns.

So that’s the headline number. But what are the causes of the gap in men’s and women’s earnings? Blau and Kahn break it down into seven buckets:

You can look at this two ways. The first is to say that the pay gap due to discrimination (the most likely cause of the “unexplained” part of the chart above) is about 10 cents per dollar, since roughly 11 cents is explained by other factors, such as experience in the job, occupation, industry, etc.

The second way—which is my take—is that it’s true that some of the gap goes away when you account for the fact that women tend to work in different jobs than men and take more time off to have children. But that’s all part of the story. When you look at the whole picture, women are punished financially in three different ways: because “women’s jobs” have historically paid less than jobs dominated by men; because women are expected to take time off when they have children, which reduces their seniority; and because even when they’re in the same job with the same amount of experience, they get paid less than men. All of these things are part of the pay gap. Whether you call all three of them “discrimination” is more a matter of taste than anything else.

But however you choose to approach it, the gender pay gap still exists. It’s at least 10 cents per dollar, and more like 21 cents if you accept that most of the mitigating factors are gender-based as well.

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The Gender Pay Gap Is Still About 21 Cents Per Dollar

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Hillary Clinton: "Politics Has to Play Some Role In This"

by ScotHeighway10 Posted on April 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton is famously well briefed, so you can be sure she had no trouble answering question from the Daily News editorial board. “Look, I’m excited about this stuff,” she said. “I’m kind of a wonky person. I’m excited by it.”

Needless to say, this also meant her interview was spectacularly dull. But after a wonky discussion of her idea for a national infrastructure bank, we got at least one revealing tidbit:

Daily News: There are many who believe that the stimulus program that had a lot of infrastructure money was divided up politically.

Clinton: Well, look. Politics has to play some role in this. Let’s not forget we do have to play some role. I got to get it passed through Congress. And I think I’m well-prepared to do that. I was telling you about Buffalo. I got $20 million. Now I got that because it was political. But it worked. And it has created this amazing medical complex. So I don’t disregard the politics, but I believe one of the ways to get to the overall political outcome is by doing a better job than I think was done in the Obama administration, in constantly talking about what this can mean — new jobs, new economic growth and competitiveness.

This isn’t breaking news or anything, but it’s a surprisingly direct defense of plain old politics, which modern politicians are supposed to condemn with extreme prejudice. Politics is the problem, not the solution. It’s why Washington doesn’t work. Too many Beltway folks playing the same old political games.

But as Clinton says, that’s not really true. Like anything, political maneuvering can go too far. But the problem with Washington these days is too little politics, not too much. Bring back earmarks! Bring back logrolling and backscratching! Bring back carrots and sticks! Bring back conference committees! Bring back a bit of give and take.

You don’t hear politicians defend the grubby business of politics very often these days. It’s nice to hear it once in a while.

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Hillary Clinton: "Politics Has to Play Some Role In This"

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Yet Another Feinstein-Burr Bill Has Been Leaked

by KarolynTrenerry Posted on April 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Senators Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr apparently have very unreliable staffs. Yet another discussion draft of a national security bill they’re jointly sponsoring has been leaked to the press. They really need to tighten up their operation.

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Yet Another Feinstein-Burr Bill Has Been Leaked

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Scientists Undervalue Meticulousness By a Lot

by AngelaJNTN Posted on April 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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According to a note in Nature, honesty and curiosity are the most highly prized traits among scientists.

That’s all well and good. I’m also happy to see perseverance and objectivity on the list. Also humility, attentiveness, skepticism, courage, and willingness to collaborate. But I’m a little dismayed that meticulousness barely even crack the top ten. Most of the greatest scientists in history were extraordinarily meticulous: Newton, Darwin, Galileo, Feynman, etc.

Meticulous attention to detail is how you turn all that curiosity and perseverance into lasting results. It’s also how you maintain your objectivity, your humility, and your skepticism. I hope that in their daily lives, scientists value meticulousness more than they do when they answer survey questions.

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Scientists Undervalue Meticulousness By a Lot

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Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 8 April 2016

by JeramyGfylqg Posted on April 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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April is an important fundraising month here at Mother Jones, and my colleague David Corn—you may remember him as the guy responsible for Valerie Plame and Mitt Romney’s 47 percent snafu—wrote a pitch called “Trump, the Media, and You,” explaining how our model of reader-supported journalism allows MoJo to report on substantive issues (like actual policy proposals and digging into candidates’ pasts!) that are largely missing from this year’s election coverage. Here’s David:

IN A WORLD OF RATINGS AND CLICKS, financially pressed media outlets frequently zero in on the shining objects of the here and now. Merely covering Trump’s outrageous remarks—did you see his latest tweet?!—has become its own beat. Even the best reporting that does happen can become lost in the never-ending flood of blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, and stories that appear in increasingly shorter news cycles.

At Mother Jones, we try each day to sort out what to cover—and where to concentrate our reporting in order to make a difference. Yes, we need to follow the daily twists and turns. But we recognize it’s important for journalists to get off the spinning hamster wheel and dig where others do not.

Hmmm. It kinda sounds like I’m MoJo’s resident hamster. It’s a tough job, but I guess someone has to do it. After all, with me on the hamster wheel, David and the rest of our reporters can focus their work on the in-depth, investigative journalism that might not make us rich in advertising dollars, but that voters and our democratic process desperately need.

If you’re reading this, I’d bet that you like both—coverage of the circus, and smart, probing journalism. They both matter. If you agree, I hope you’ll pitch in a couple bucks during our fundraising drive—and since we’re a nonprofit, your contributions are tax-deductible. You can give by credit card, or PayPal.

Still, hamster though I may be, we all know that Friday afternoon is reserved for cats. And I know what you’re thinking: That pod I bought last week looks lovely and comfy, but it only has room for one cat. What’s up with that?

Pshaw. There is always room for another cat. It’s the magic of cat physics, far more astounding than black holes or quantum mechanics. No matter how many cats you have, somehow you can always squeeze in one more.

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Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 8 April 2016

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Paul Krugman Is Annoying

by LonLaboureyas Posted on April 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Paul Krugman doesn’t think much of Bernie Sanders. Krugman being Krugman, that means he’s been flooding the zone with anti-Bernie columns and blog posts. This hasn’t gone over well with many of his erstwhile fans:

Greg Sargent gets this right. These days, nobody is allowed to be anti-Bernie or anti-Hillary simply because they disagree with them. There has to be some hidden, crypto-conservative agenda involved. In reality, though, this is just Krugman being his usual self. It’s what he does. Lefties are now learning why conservatives find him so annoying.

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Paul Krugman Is Annoying

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It’s Been Quiet Lately. Maybe a Little Too Quiet…

by FrederiSiemens Posted on April 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Didn’t there used to be some guy named Donald Trump running for president? Whatever happened to him? It seems like days since I’ve heard a desperate cry for attention from the campaign trail.

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It’s Been Quiet Lately. Maybe a Little Too Quiet…

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CEO Pay Down in 2015, But Still Higher Than Its Bubble Heights

by bibw6a Posted on April 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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Sad news today from the Wall Street Journal. Among CEOs of big companies, stock-based pay was up 7 percent last year and cash pay was up 2 percent. But thanks to slower growth of CEO pensions, overall compensation was down 4 percent.

But perhaps CEOs will be mollified by the broader picture, which you can see in the chart on the right. CEO pay is up about 44 percent since 2007 in nominal terms, and up about 38 percent when you account for inflation. For ordinary workers, pay has decreased 5 percent since 2007 when you account for inflation.

For anyone wondering why Bernie Sanders has struck such a chord with the electorate, this pretty much tells the story. The Great Recession sure didn’t affect everyone equally, did it? Ordinary schlubs paid a high price, but the folks with the most lavish pay to begin with just shrugged it off like it never happened. If the rich wonder why calls to tax high incomes at 90 percent sound pretty good to a lot of people, this should clue them in.

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CEO Pay Down in 2015, But Still Higher Than Its Bubble Heights

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Maybe Atrios Is Right About Driverless Cars

by TamikaEarp Posted on April 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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A couple of weeks ago we bought a Neato robotic vacuum. It wouldn’t operate for more than five minutes at a time, so I called tech support. They were very nice, and said I had to “calibrate the battery.” Huh. I did that, and it got better, but then it wouldn’t return to its base. Calibrate it again, they said. So I did, and it started returning home. But then it started running into a wall and getting stuck. I don’t know why. It was just a bare wall. But the robot apparently wanted to climb up to the ceiling or something, and you know how robots are once they get an idea in their heads. Then it went under a chair and refused to come out.

So I returned the Neato and went to Fry’s, where I bought a Roomba. Much better! It worked the first time with no problems—except for one thing: it would only clean one room. Apparently some bright spark in the Roomba marketing department asked engineering to write a bit of additional firmware that would cripple the device so they could call it a new model and sell it at a new price point. But this makes it fairly useless, since the whole point of a device like this is to schedule it and forget it.

But I tried it anyway. Oddly, it worked OK upstairs, where there are many hallways and rooms. Downstairs, though, it would only clean the living room. I moved it to the kitchen, but no dice: it made a beeline for the living room and cleaned it again. So I tried one more time. Success! It started cleaning the kitchen. But then it developed a grudge against our dishwasher. I wish I had video of this, but basically it went nuts. It banged into it, circled around angrily, got up on its hind wheels (seriously) and banged away some more. It was pissed. I watched it do this for more than five minutes before I shut it off. I was afraid it would eventually wreck the dishwasher. It’s going back to Fry’s tomorrow.

For some time Atrios has been saying that driverless cars are a fantasy. I think he’s crazy. But I have to score this round in his favor. Robotic vacuums travel at about 1 mph; they don’t have to avoid other robotic vacuums; nothing in their path moves; and all they have to do is crudely recognize obstacles and map a way around them. And yet, after ten years of development, they still can’t do it reliably. Maybe driverless cars really are a fantasy.

But I have good tech news too. Many years ago I got tired of the lousy keyboards that come with modern computers, and bought an old IBM mechanical keyboard. It was nice, but it was so loud I stopped using it. The noise was so overpowering that it almost made conversation impossible.

Last week I decided to try again. You may not be aware of this, but thanks to gamers there’s been a renaissance in high-quality mechanical keyboards. The one I bought was insanely expensive (about $150), but also had some other features I wanted, and it’s killer. For the cognoscenti among you, it uses Cherry MX brown switches, and I love it. It has a great feel, but the sound is muffled just enough that it won’t wake the neighbors.

It even advanced the cause of journalism. Once I tried it out, I was so eager to type something substantial that I finally got back to a story I’m writing for the next issue of the magazine. It’s all finished now, and you’re probably going to hate it. Everyone’s going to hate it. But at least it was created using a really nice keyboard.

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Maybe Atrios Is Right About Driverless Cars

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Does It Really Matter if Bernie Called Hillary Unqualified?

by PenneyBarge4101 Posted on April 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Josh Marshall weighs in on the flap over Bernie Sanders saying that Hillary Clinton is unqualified to be president:

Various things Clinton said can be reasonably interpreted as questioning whether Sanders is up to the job of the presidency. But it is an entirely different matter when an opponent, in his own voice, says flatly his challenger is “unqualified” to serve as President of the country. That’s something that cannot be unsaid. If Clinton is the nominee, it will undoubtedly be a staples of GOP stump speeches in the Fall. These are simple realities of political campaigns.

I’m curious about something: is this actually true? I hear it every four years. At some point, the primary races always get a little (or a lot) nasty, and the candidates start saying things that seem like they’d be great fodder for attack ads by the other side in the general election. But are they? Do these kinds of comments ever end up as a major theme in political ads?

I never see it. Of course, I live in California, and nobody ever bothers advertising here. Still, I never really hear about it elsewhere either. By the time the general election comes along, both sides have far more important attacks to make. And they probably assume—rightly—that most undecided voters don’t care much what some angry primary opponent said six months before.

I’d prefer that both Bernie and Hillary dial it back a notch. But is Donald Trump really going to attack Hillary by showing footage of Bernie saying she’s not qualified to be president, nyah nyah nyah? I doubt it. Even low-information voters know that this is the kind of thing that happens in the heat of campaigns, and it doesn’t really mean anything.

Does anyone know the answer to this? In 2012, for example, did the Obama campaign run attack ads featuring Newt Gingrich saying that Romney kept money in the Cayman Islands? Did the McCain campaign in 2008 use footage of Hillary attacking Obama? Just how common—or not—is this?

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Does It Really Matter if Bernie Called Hillary Unqualified?

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