The concept called “Comparable Worth” is based on studies which are not comparable and certainly are not worth the cost expended on them. That is the conclusion of a thorough evaluation of the evaluators made by the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis.
Research Analyst Richard Burr examined the job studies made by those states that have already plunged into Comparable Worth fantasies. The evidence shows that the Comparable Worth concept is so unscientific that it is ridiculous, and so biased that it is funny.
Comparable Worth advocates claim that their method of setting wages is scientific and objective because it is based on assigning numerical scores to the worth of various aspects of particular jobs, and then paying equal wages for jobs that result in the same numbers on the “worth” chart. They argue that this is fairer than the free market.
If it is valid to compare different jobs that are assigned the same numerical worth, then it should be even more valid to compare the same jobs in different studies. Burr did this, plotting on charts the three states that have done the most extensive comparable worth studies, Iowa, Minnesota, and Vermont. The results are devastating to the concept.
Take librarian, a favorite job which the Comparable Worth advocates always say is presently underpaid. According to the Comparable Worth studies, a Minnesota librarian is worth 30 percent more than a Vermont librarian, who in turn is worth 20 percent more than the Iowa librarian. Such results are hardly scientific.
Take photographer. A Minnesota photographer is worth 25 percent more than the Iowa photographer, and the Vermont photographer is worth twice as much as the Iowa photographer. It’s obvious that the “worth” scores are not objective.
In Minnesota, a registered nurse, a chemist, and a social worker all have equal worth. However, in Iowa, the nurse is worth 29 percent more than the social worker, who in turn is worth 11 percent more than the chemist. In Vermont, the social worker is worth 10 percent more than the nurse, who in turn is worth 10 percent more than the chemist.
Comparable worth studies do not attempt to compare all job classifications. The concept is limited to comparisons of gender-dominated jobs. If you work in a type of job that has half men and half women, you are not even on the chart for discussion.
When the Comparable Worth concept first surfaced, jobs were compared that were 70 percent or more dominated by men or by women. But when the 70 percent figure didn’t produce the desired proof of discrimination, the Comparable Worth advocates began to play games with the 70 percent figure.
For example, in New York, a job is considered to be female-dominated if it has 67.2 percent women, but male-dominated if it is 90 percent men. The Center for Women in Government admitted that using the same figure for women and men wouldn’t show very much discrimination, so it arbitrarily chose the different cutoff figures.
Who does the job evaluations? Some states use fellow employees, one state used specialized outsiders, one state used college students, and New York relied solely on “self-reports” from employees while rejecting information from supervisors.
Then there is the problem of what aspects of a job are evaluated and quantified. Usually, the factors are divided into four areas: knowledge and skills, problem solving, accountability, and working conditions, with many subheads under each.
But how do you weight and rank these factors and then assign numbers to them? Richard Burr concluded that the mathematical formulas are only a facade for preconceived notions.
For example, Michigan ranks “knowledge” as 11 percent while Iowa ranks it as 25 percent. “Consequences of decisions/actions” counts for 30 percent in Michigan but only 14 percent in Kansas.
In Michigan, the factor for physical demands was defined in such a way that lifting a 75-pound box once every two hours is said to require the same effort as typing and lifting many smaller objects such as papers and pencils during the same period.
How do the evaluators determine the number of points for each factor? The instructions explain how: “Which one you choose is a judgment of your ‘feel’ of the strengths and weaknesses of the factors.”
So Comparable Worth is not objective after all. It is a “get-in-touch-with-your-feelings” methodology.
