Do women really make '77 cents on the dollar'?

Do women really make &#039;77 cents on the dollar&#039;?

(Image credit: Adam Berry/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Today is Equal Pay Day — and to commemorate the occasion, President Obama issued two executive orders.

Interestingly, however, it turns out the Obama White House also pays women less than men, leading some to wonder whether factors other than wage discrimination might account for the discrepancy.

Enter the American Enterprise Institute's Mark J. Perry and Andrew G. Biggs, whose recent Wall Street Journal op-ed digs into the Bureau of Labor Statistics report and seems to undermine the notion that anything sinister is at play here. Among their findings:

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Men were almost twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week, and women almost twice as likely to work only 35 to 39 hours per week. Once that is taken into consideration, the pay gap begins to shrink. Women who worked a 40-hour week earned 88 percent of male earnings.

Then there is the issue of marriage and children. The BLS reports that single women who have never married earned 96 percent of men's earnings in 2012. [Wall Street Journal]

This is not to say that these aren't important and complex issues worth discussing — but it is to say that the simplistic way this is presented is often misleading. You know the old saying: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

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Matt K. Lewis is a contributing editor at TheWeek.com and a senior contributor for The Daily Caller. He has written for outlets including GQ Politics, The Guardian, and Politico, and has been cited or quoted by outlets including New York Magazine, the Washington Post, and The New York Times. Matt co-hosts The DMZ on Bloggingheads.TV, and also hosts his own podcast. In 2011, Business Insider listed him as one of the 50 "Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election." And in 2012, the American Conservative Union honored Matt as their CPAC "Blogger of the Year." He currently lives in Alexandria, Va.