And let's not forget there are 780,000 more women unemployed since O took office.

20,000 WOMEN ARE MURDERED EACH YEAR BY RELIGION THAT OBAMA STRONGLY SUPPORTS! DON’T BE DECEIVED! OBAMA WILL ENFORCE DEADLY ISLAMIC SHARIA LAW IN USA IF RE-ELECTED! WATCH 8-minute VIDEO at TheBBCReport.com

Willis Dad, I'm not sure Eric made any point. Perhaps you could help him out...

Seeking peace through a stronger military? Do you have that phrase highlighted in your Stalin handbook? Adorable! Oh I see, it was used by Reagan, and the Republicans want to capitalize on that. A man who tripled the debt in 8 years, truly a small government champion!

Let's talk facts: During the presidency of George W. Bush, the gross public debt increased from $5.7 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008. Under President Barack Obama, the debt increased from $10.7 trillion in 2008 to $15.5 trillion by February 2012

So the last two presidents have each contributed 5 trillion in debt. Both parties are culpable, believing that one party is going to reduce the debt is asinine, unless you have a short attention span and prefer OH LOOK GENDER PAY GAP. Whoops, looks like your ploy worked, I got sidetracked on a totally non-relevant issue there. Hey here's a vetted fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the actual gap is 5%, isn't that interesting? Oh, but they are a liberal conspiracy factory! Right?!?!

Since both candidates don't seem like great choices, I am on the fence about where to cast my vote. When you say "your candidate", I guess you meant Romney, because I was considering him. I would definitely like to support smaller government, but the Democrats certainly aren't going to deliver that, but apparently neither are the Republicans with huge increases in military spending planned.

TJ, is it a choice between Bush and Obama? If not, your point is not relevant to a discussion about Obama.

Labor and Statistics - great. I'm glad the overarching differential between pay for women vs pay for men is now down to 5% among all employers. Perhaps Obama could shoot for that inside his own small staff. Currently it's at 18%, which is the topic of this blog.

Confucius say: May who straddle fence have sore perineum.

Ok, so let's dive deeper and look at where the pay gap numbers come from:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/annual-records/2011

Pay is determined by position, time at the job, and responsibility levels, those are federally mandated criteria. When you group by position (that sort option is available via that link), there is really no difference in pay between men and women. Any differences do exist can be attributed to the other factors mentioned. The 18% number comes from taking the median, which in this case is being used disingenuously and does not really tell the story.

Want to talk facts? The facts are right there, but they are being bent to try and score a zinger against the opposition. It is typical partisan politics and a distraction from the more prevalent issues, one of which I brought up. The reason this opinion piece was written was to attempt to score quick points against Obama, because you disagree with his policies. We would be better served by discussing more relevant issues or pertinent examples of fact checking.

TJ,

Do you have a similar filterable graph from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics to shore up your previous zinger? By the way I did click your link and found no way to filter tenure and responsibility levels, simply title. And when I sort by title, females with the same title are usually earning less than males.

Also Obama's gender differential is noticed outside White House walls, and Dee Dee Myers- the first female press secretary in the Clinton administration- feels it is not doing Team Obama any favors.

'Women are Obama’s base, and they don’t seem to have enough people who look like the base inside of their own inner circle,' Dee Dee Myers told The New York Times.

Sure, I don't mind doing your research for you, this is from a study commissioned by the Dept of Labor: "There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent."

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf

So wow, it's pretty fascinating that you sorted by title and noticed that "usually" women are earning less than men. What was your formula? Hmm, let's take the ANALYST position, well we have 14 people listed here, regardless of sex they are all making the same income, except for one woman who is making 20k more. How about RECORDS MANAGEMENT ANALYST, we have two women in the mid 40k range, another making 73k, one guy making 56k, oh here's one dude at 62k, and one a woman at 60k. Well, these numbers are all over the board! I guess in 25 minutes you had time to run a full statistical analysis!

OR you realized that your opinion piece is based off some crap article that has skewed stats. Also it is pretty hilarious that a staunch conservative has to resort to Dee Dee Myers to try and bolster his erroneous point. When the facts aren't on your side, go with a vague quote. Keep tryin little buddy!

You're all over the place, little buddy. You cite a differential which isn't relevant to Obama's hypocrisy when it comes to fair treatment of females.

Of Obama's 20 top earners, each paid $172,200 in 2011, six were women, one of whom is Valerie Jarrett, a close personal friend since Chicago.

The median salary for women in the White House is $60,000 which is 18 per cent less than their male peers whose median salary was $71,000. Using your filter, TJ, females with identical titles to males (assuming the job descriptions that go with the titles are also identical as it goes in all businesses), are paid less. And there are fewer females than males. I find that hypocritical of the President. Probably a few females other than Dee Dee feel the same. "Mitt Romney still won't say whether he'd stand up for equal pay, but he did tell us he has 'binders full of women," Obama tweeted.

Statistics don't tell the whole story. Obama has incurred persistent criticism that women in his White House for the most part are kept out of the inner circle.
The same woman who was one of Mr. Obama's debate coaches, Anita Dunn, complained that the White House when she worked there would have been in court for being a "hostile workplace" for women."

In late 2009, women in the White House felt so marginalized that Obama held a dinner to let the senior female aides voice their complaints directly to him.

Nice.

All over the place? I guess if you have poor reading comprehension you might think that. The study I linked explains that when examining gender pay gap, there are a number of factors to take into consideration. After making adjustments for variables, the actual pay difference that can be attributed to discrimination is around 5%. This would apply to businesses across the country and would apply to Administration jobs as well. Additionally, for government jobs there are factors such as length of tenure, additional responsibilities, etc.

In fact, it even specifies that using median salary to examine gender pay gap is an example of a data point that will not produce an accurate picture. Therefore, it is not possible to take a median salary comparison and draw conclusions. Also you cannot assume that because there are fewer females to males, that holds any meaning. There is no data about who applied for a particular job, how qualified they are, etc. All this adds up to prove that you cannot statistically show there is discrimination based off the information available. As you correctly admit, the statistics don't tell the whole story. Thanks for proving yourself wrong!

Just curious, did you catch the Washington Times article where Ms. Dunn says she was misquoted concerning the "hostile workplace" comment? Probably not. Oh Jack, maybe next time you will do a little research before you spew out a bunch of ridiculous assertions based on poor statistical analysis.

TJ, your renderings are as small as those of the Obama campaign. Of course I had read it. Anita Dunn is a smart woman with lawyers. If she were misquoted in a published book, she could own all rights to the book's proceeds for libel. She retracts her earlier quote during the campaign cycle and you automatically buy that. What else can Team O sell you.

Deflect. Blame others. Attempt to distract women voters from the real issues with "binders" and BS. Is Obama a beast to work for if you're female? Who cares. Suggest you and anyone else reading this scroll way-way back to the top and watch the video which is the truth, and started this "dialogue."

The path we're on—the status-quo path—is a path that doesn't offer women an answer to how to get the economy going, that doesn't know about how to get the private sector to start creating jobs for women or how to build women's take-home pay. The path we're on does not have new answers. The president has the same old answers as in the past — he wants another stimulus, he wants more government workers, and he wants to raise taxes. There is no prospect whatsoever that that path will help our economy grow and put women to work and raise take-home pay. President Thomas Jefferson person, you have yet to offer anything close to a coherent historical fact-based rebuke to that statement. You represent Obama's core voter base. Your deflections bore me. Here you go, have the last word.