Obama: Equal Pay for Women... Just Not on My Dime

Posted by Bobby Eberle
July 1, 2008 at 6:00 am
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Sen. Barack Obama talks a good game. There's talk about hope and change, and hope and change, and even more hope and change. What exactly is he hoping to change? No one really knows, but one thing is clear: the more we get to know him, the more we realize that his actions are quite different than his "hope and change" rhetoric.

As an example, take his recent speech about pay discrimination between men and women. Obama told the audience in Albuquerque, NM that he supports "a Senate bill to make it easier to sue an employer for pay discrimination." Yet, upon a review of Obama's payroll, we learn that women are paid less than men. Keep talking Sen. Obama.


As reported by CNSNews.com, "While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equity for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men. That is in contrast to Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Senate office, where women, for the most part, out-rank and are paid more than men."

In his speech, Obama spoke about how his single mom worked to raise her family. He spoke of hardships of his grandmother, and also his wife. He set the stage beautifully by noting the successes of these women... then what did he do? He blasted Sen. John McCain, saying, "But when you look at our records and our plans on issues that matter to working women, the choice could not be clearer. ... It starts with equal pay."

It starts with equal pay? Did he seriously say that with a straight face? As CNSNews.com notes in their analysis, "On average, women working in Obama's Senate office were paid at least $6,000 below the average man working for the Illinois senator." CNSNews.com also points out that "of the five people in Obama's Senate office who were paid $100,000 or more on an annual basis, only one -- Obama's administrative manager -- was a woman."

In contrast, women outnumbered men on McCain's Senate payroll by 30 to 16. The women were paid an average of $3,000 more than the men.

Obama sounds less and less like an advocate of hope and change, and more and more like a typical politician. In his speech Obama said, "We can't afford an economy where folks keep working harder for less. We can't let the women in our workforce get paid even less for doing the same work." Oh really? It appears that Obama, as an employer, has no problems doing exactly what he is speaking against. I guess he means "other" employers. Certainly we shouldn't look at what his own hiring practices really are, right? This is just one other part of his record that he'd prefer be kept out of the spotlight.

Near the end of his speech, Obama said, "I want my daughters to grow up in an America where they have opportunities that are even greater than their mother had, or their grandmothers, or their great grandmothers -- an America where our daughters truly have the same opportunities as our sons."

Note to Obama's daughters.... Don't go to work for your dad.