RawleyCoop1:50AMSep 14th 2008

Let me say that I am a professional statistician (everyone has to do something for a living). And in my experience, when you have data with this many variables and variation, you could make almost any point you want and make it sound reasonable. Depending on how you cherry pick methods to add things up, you can make it seem like Senator Obama pays women staffers more, less, or the same as male staffers. But it is all smoke and mirrors.

First rule of statistics, don't guess at what might be happening, go back to the source data. So that is what I did. I pulled up the numbers you quoted from
http://www.legistorm.com .

Let me caveat this with I wasn't always sure which staffers were male and which were female (based only on their first name). I'm not sure how the person you are quoting did it. Whenever possible, I'll give the person's first name and let you decide.

Obama has 58 staffers, with 34 different job titles and a very wide range of salaries. His two highest paid positions are his "Administrative Manager" (Carolyn at $100K) and his "Legislative Director" (Christopher at $120K). But he also has "Staff Assistant"s earning under $15K (about equally divided between men and women). But the question is equal pay for EQUAL WORK, so comparing completely different jobs tells us nothing.

Of the 5 staff titles where he has more than 2 people with the same title (and therefore probably "equal work"), women seem to get as many high (and low) salaries as men do. For example: The highest paid "Constituent Services Agent" was Scott. The highest paid "Legislative Correspondent" was Crystal. The highest paid "Special Assistant" was Joan. The highest paid "Staff Assistant" was Jeffery. And the four highest paid (same salary) "Legislative Assistant"s were Dora, Henry, Adam, and Daniel.

I also performed all the usual statistical tests and confirmed the same results: There is no statistical evidence that Senator Obama pays men more than women for the same job titles (take my word for it, or perform the tests yourself).

Let me say that I also looked at the staff salaries of Senator McCain's staff. He has less staff positions (43) than Senator Obama but a lot more interns. His staff is about equally divided between men and women. His two highest paid positions are his "Legislative Director" (Ann at $130K) and his "Administrative Assistant" (Mark at $160K). He has only 19 job titles, with 4 being shared by 2+ staffers. This is because 18 of his staff have the simple title of "Staff Assistant" with salaries ranging from $18K to $60K, so I think it is safe to say that not all his "Staff Assistant"s are the same job or have "equal work".

But the bottom line is that Senator McCain's staff seems pretty equal between men and women at every level, and it seems that in his office men and women get equal pay for equal work (just like in Senator Obama's office).

One explanation could be that women compose a majority of McCain's highest-paid aides. Among his top-five best-compensated staffers, three are women. Of his 20-highest-salaried employees, 13 are women. The Republican presidential nominee relies on women - much more than men - for advice at the highest, and thus, best-paid levels.

Obama's female staffers shortchanged

Highlights:

Again, on average, Obama's female staffers earn just 83 cents for every dollar his male staffers make. This figure certainly exceeds the 77-cent threshold that Obama's campaign Web site condemns. However, 83 cents do not equal $1. In spite of this 17-cent gap between Obama's rhetoric and reality, he chose to chide GOP presidential contender John McCain on this issue.

On average, according to these data, women in McCain's office make $1.04 for every dollar a man makes. In fact, all other things being equal, a typical female staffer could earn 21 cents more per dollar paid to her male counterpart - while adding $10,726 to her annual income - by leaving Obama's office and going to work for McCain.

I realize it is action, not words so progressive's needn't pay attention.