Ultimate Supreme Court Nerdery Part II
David and Sarah finish their preview of a number of upcoming Supreme Court decisions from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to DACA and the Title VII cases. The two also discuss the debate over moves to expand vote by mail, and the new Hulu miniseries Mrs. America.
Show Notes:
-A Guide To the 10 Biggest Supreme Court Cases of This Term
-A Glossary of Important SCOTUS Terminology
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
David and Sarah, I loved your latest podcast, as always. I was especially intrigued by your short conversation about Mrs. Schlafly at the end. She was, no doubt, a polarizing figure. Sarah, you mentioned how Mrs. Schlafly was against "equal pay for equal work." I teach economics at the high school level in Missouri, and I find this topic very interesting (and very difficult) to discuss.There is no doubt that a person should not be paid less for a job solely because she is a woman. There must be other factors, and that can require legislation. However, good legislation on this topic would be incredibly difficult to write without leading to unintended consequences and/or undue deference to the courts and bureaucracy.
The reason it's so difficult is because almost everyone has a different definition of "equal work." I would love to hear how both of you define that term. What goes into determining if work is "equal"? Education level and experience are widely regarded as differentiating factors that are acceptable. What about productivity or revenue generated? Do some form of these have to be included? If not, I'm afraid I could see a day where many professional women's sports would cease to exist, and that would be a shame. They're doing the "same job" as men, often for the same owners, but at vastly different pay. The WNBA simply does not generate the revenue the NBA does, so how else can we justify the incredible difference in their pay per game while still fighting for equal pay in other areas? If, in your opinion, we can't justify that huge discrepancy in pay, will the WNBA even exist any more?
How do we write a law that keeps a factory in my town from paying a woman with equal experience, quality of work and productivity as a man less than him (although I'm fairly certain they wouldn't) without leading ourselves into some murky unintended waters? The one thing we don't want to do is write legislation that would prevent private employers from giving raises to people who are great at their jobs, so how do we do that?
I sincerely hope these do not come off as "hot takes" or "loaded questions." I want to make sure that women aren't paid less than men when they shouldn't be. To do that, we'll need the very best definition of "equal work" that we can get. You two are highly qualified to do that, and I thank you in advance for taking up the question in writing...or on a future podcast!
I thought this was great!
I don't understand why David called the subgroup of women who were championing women's rights "cultural elites." If more wealth and status was concentrated in traditional families in which the woman was expected/ chose to/ received the financial benefits to be able to stay at home, then this would confer elite status, so it's a misnomer to call these people elites.
Similarly, it's a common conservative turn of phrase to call people "elites." You hear this from people like Tucker Carlson, who last time I paid attention to what he was doing was wearing a bowtie. For the past twenty years the majority of Americans in the lower part of the medium income have voted democratic. Wealthy, white suburban Americans broke for Trump in the past election. Therefore, it would seem appropriate to talk about conservative elites, but the other way around isn't necessarily accurate (unless "elite" doesn't have anything to do with wealth, status or power).