Letters to the Editor
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Source for statistics found -- and they're not as reported here
The article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune includes this paragraph:
. . . median earnings for men in their lowest-paid occupations range from $15,150 to $23,500 annually in New Orleans, compared with women's earnings of $11,400 to $20,000 in their lowest-paid occupations. Median earnings among the highest-paid jobs for men range from $38,700 to $130,000, compared with $30,000 to $63,000 for women.
A few comments:
1. The numbers in this Broadsheet item cited these as average earnings in their job categories, but according to the Times-Picayune they are median figures. This could signify a very big difference from what the numbers seem to show, depending how many men and how many women are in each "job category".
2. The source for these figures is the "Institute for Women's Policy Research" -- which by its name sounds like a respectable, believable organization.
But it also sounds like a women's advocacy organization. If women's advocacy organizations have anything remotely like Broadsheet writers' tendency to distort the truth when it suits their purposes, then there is no way these figures can be assumed valid.
This is not limited to women, of course. Advocacy organizations of all stripes tend to distort the truth when it suits their purposes. For this reason, I would sooner trust a disinterested organization's figures than those of an advocacy group.