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American political commentator Dennis Prager is the founder of PragerU, a non-profit organization that creates videos on various political, economic, and philosophical topics from a conservative perspective.
One of the subjects PragerU tackles is the gender pay gap. The organization has released material claiming it didn’t exist as early as 2017, but when it took its views to TikTok, it was met with great resistance.
One of the people who opposed PragerU was James Ray. Drawing from the things he learned while pursuing a degree in economics, Ray published a response to the organization, attacking their main claim on the subject—if women were paid less than men, businesses would hire only women.
While he still wasn’t roasted of TikTok, Dennis Prager released a video where he denied the gender pay gap
James told Bored Panda that he chose to get a degree in economics because he wanted to go into investment management. However, once he became more left-leaning, he realized just how valuable this “tool” was—it helped him contextualize the theory he read and explain better to people how some reforms and changes can materially benefit them. “Basically, it just made it easier for me to educate people on disparities present in our society,” he said.
“I had heard of Dennis Prager well before the TikTok because of Prager U (he’s sort of a well-known right-wing ideologue and propagandist),” James said. “And I do not like him. He spews very hateful unfounded rhetoric to his audience and I think the disinformation and overall problematic nature of his content have made me dislike him considerably!”
“My TikTok received an overall very good response, but like anything political, there’s always a cohort of people trying their best to disagree publicly,” Ray explained. “I’d say overall though I have seen a lot of good feedback!”
However, Prager hasn’t. In fact, he has already deactivated his account, and this particular video may have contributed to it as well.
“As far as his attention from other TikTokers, I think it’s been mostly negative,” James said. “TikTok is… not fun for conservatives but particularly not for those like Dennis and I think the overall political TikTok community response has been a mixture of either attacking and mocking him and his positions or outright ignoring him so as to not give him attention.”
But it really didn’t fly with James Ray
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the presence of alternative ways to measure the gender pay gap is one of the reasons for the misconception that data on the gender wage gap is unreliable. However, the data is remarkably clear and (unfortunately) consistent about the scale of the gap. “One often-cited statistic comes from the Census Bureau, which looks at annual pay of full-time workers,” the EPI wrote. “By that measure, women are paid 80 cents for every dollar men are paid.”
“Another measure looks at hourly pay and does not exclude part-time workers. It finds that, relative to men, typical women are paid 83 cents on the dollar. Other less-cited measures show different gaps because they examine the gap at different parts of the wage distribution, or for different demographic subgroups, or are adjusted for factors such as education level and occupation.”
His response already has over 1.3 million views
@jamesgetspoliticalLabor market time 😈 ##greenscreenvideo ##leftist ##liberal ##democrat ##women ##FindYourCore ##fyp ##4u ##reply ##politics ##usa ##money♬ original sound – James Ray
There’s no going around it; the gender pay gap is a thing. Why does it still exist is a question for another time. However, at least it looks like things are getting better.
A 2005 meta-analysis by Doris Weichselbaumer and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer of more than 260 published pay gap studies for over 60 countries found that from the 1960s to the 1990s, raw (aka non-adjusted) wage differentials worldwide have fallen substantially from around 65% to 30%. The bulk of this decline was due to better labor market endowments of women (i.e. better education, training, and work attachment).
One person asked James to discuss the issue further
So he released a follow-up
@jamesgetspoliticalAnswer to @jaredjonjacobs yay Econ questions 😇 ##leftist ##liberal ##democrat ##politics ##FindYourCore ##fyp ##4u ##usa ##women ##money♬ SUNNY DAY – Matteo Rossanese
But we still have a long way to go. According to the 2018 report from the World Economic Forum, it will take more than 200 years for economic gender equality to emerge, and 108 years to completely close the global gender gap across politics, health, and education. And people like Dennis Prager aren’t helping.
Here’s what other people said on the subject
What do you think ?
El Dee 3 years ago
He doesn't think there's a gender pay gap because he's never been victim to it. It's like how many white people don't see racism..
Carol Emory 3 years ago
As a white woman, I see racism everyday. I don't tolerate it. But the door swings both ways. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I'm automatically a racist. No one knows my background, where I grew up, who my friends were and what kind of hardships I've had to face. So why is it automatically assumed that I'm racist?
Load More Replies...
Truth Monster 3 years ago
So the "wage gap" and how it came to exist depends on who you listen to. From the conservative standpoint (which is what PragerU is) women are making life choices such as taking large chunks of time off to have children or to take care of ailing family. This means the "wage gap" isn't evil, its women making life choices because they are free to do so. Of course, you could call it patriarchy that expects women to be the primary caregivers, but that's a tangent. Men, statistically speaking, do not take large chunks of time off. My opinion: If you really want to solve a wage gap in the most logical way possible, then make it mandatory for employers to make public what they pay for each position. That way if there is a disparity based on sex, it becomes readily apparent.
Kathryn Baylis 3 years ago
The last company I worked for made us sign an agreement—-at orientation—-not to discuss pay with other employees. Needless to say, I was exposed to COVId in the office, the company never even acknowledged it much less addressed it, and expected me to still come in to the same office where I was exposed to the virus. I had to resign to quarantine. On that last day, I contacted the fellow employees who weren’t corporate puppets and told them how much I was being paid. I can only hope that started some conversations. F**k that company’s gag order policy, especially considering the pay range they advertise but don’t ever offer.
Load More Replies...
N G 3 years ago
There is also a different pay gap - at least covered by the EU men and women are (and it's illegal not to be) paid the same for doing the same work. So there is a different pay gap - where women earn less OVERALL as a percentage of the men's wage. This happens where more men are hired than women, so the total wages paid to women is less than to men. And also (bare with me) women tend to favour lower-paying jobs. Before you hit the downvote - all this means is that the jobs women favour (because they better accommodate childcare needs etc) are not valued as highly - a cashier is paid less than a mechanic, for example. A teacher earns less than a banker. A police officer is paid more than a nurse - this last one (in the UK) is important; they're both government funded so market forces aren't a factor. (They both earn less than an MP, which is a different matter again).
Laura Vanotti 3 years ago
This is sad reading: I’m a woman, I work in the Financial Sector and I’ve been paid less than my male colleague who does the same job. BTW, he has children and I don’t. Child care as reason for underpaying women? We left the sixties three generations ago but I see here that some people got stuck.
Load More Replies...
El Dee 3 years ago
He doesn't think there's a gender pay gap because he's never been victim to it. It's like how many white people don't see racism..
Carol Emory 3 years ago
As a white woman, I see racism everyday. I don't tolerate it. But the door swings both ways. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I'm automatically a racist. No one knows my background, where I grew up, who my friends were and what kind of hardships I've had to face. So why is it automatically assumed that I'm racist?
Load More Replies... Truth Monster 3 years ago
So the "wage gap" and how it came to exist depends on who you listen to. From the conservative standpoint (which is what PragerU is) women are making life choices such as taking large chunks of time off to have children or to take care of ailing family. This means the "wage gap" isn't evil, its women making life choices because they are free to do so. Of course, you could call it patriarchy that expects women to be the primary caregivers, but that's a tangent. Men, statistically speaking, do not take large chunks of time off. My opinion: If you really want to solve a wage gap in the most logical way possible, then make it mandatory for employers to make public what they pay for each position. That way if there is a disparity based on sex, it becomes readily apparent.
Kathryn Baylis 3 years ago
The last company I worked for made us sign an agreement—-at orientation—-not to discuss pay with other employees. Needless to say, I was exposed to COVId in the office, the company never even acknowledged it much less addressed it, and expected me to still come in to the same office where I was exposed to the virus. I had to resign to quarantine. On that last day, I contacted the fellow employees who weren’t corporate puppets and told them how much I was being paid. I can only hope that started some conversations. F**k that company’s gag order policy, especially considering the pay range they advertise but don’t ever offer.
Load More Replies... N G 3 years ago
There is also a different pay gap - at least covered by the EU men and women are (and it's illegal not to be) paid the same for doing the same work. So there is a different pay gap - where women earn less OVERALL as a percentage of the men's wage. This happens where more men are hired than women, so the total wages paid to women is less than to men. And also (bare with me) women tend to favour lower-paying jobs. Before you hit the downvote - all this means is that the jobs women favour (because they better accommodate childcare needs etc) are not valued as highly - a cashier is paid less than a mechanic, for example. A teacher earns less than a banker. A police officer is paid more than a nurse - this last one (in the UK) is important; they're both government funded so market forces aren't a factor. (They both earn less than an MP, which is a different matter again).
Laura Vanotti 3 years ago
This is sad reading: I’m a woman, I work in the Financial Sector and I’ve been paid less than my male colleague who does the same job. BTW, he has children and I don’t. Child care as reason for underpaying women? We left the sixties three generations ago but I see here that some people got stuck.
Load More Replies...
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