Letter: Pay equity law would hurt women
Researchers have shown that company-level differences have become large enough to influence national productivity growth and overall wage inequality. The new study suggests they affect income mobility, too. Credit: iStock
A recent letter writer understands the true nature of gender pay equity ["Politicians pander on gender pay equity," Nov. 2]. What rules the market is not fairness but cheapness. That's why identical services and goods -- say, two quarts of milk or gallons of gasoline -- sell for different prices. Businesses advertise that they sell for less.
Equal pay for equal work sounds fair, but it handicaps women by destroying their ability to bid down the price of their labor and thus, their ability to compete for jobs.
Robert Carlen, Stony Brook
