WASHINGTON — The average woman working on U.S. government contract jobs is paid 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, 89 cents if she has the same job and experience as her male counterpart, a disputed Labor Department survey of federal contractors found.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was releasing a draft of the survey Tuesday, but even ahead of its release, the Labor Department took issue with its findings.
The department said the study was not released officially because accuracy questions arose during the Clinton administration.
"The methodology and the data that was used in the study was severely flawed," said Stuart Roy, spokesman for Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. Another study is being prepared, he said.
Harkin released the draft study to mark Equal Pay Day, the theoretical point in the year when women's pay catches up to men's salaries from the year before.
The senator asked the Labor Department almost two years ago to examine federal contractors' wage data and pay gaps. The study was completed in January before President Bush took office, and Harkin has pressed unsuccessfully for its official release.
According to Harkin's draft, the pay gap is 28 cents for the average woman and 11 cents when she has the same job, race and experience as a man and they work in the same industry and region in firms of equal size.
The pay gap is based on discrimination and women often getting steered into lower-paying occupations, the study said. About half of working women are in occupations that are at least 70 percent female and that typically pay lower wages, it said.
"I urge the new administration to release this report," Harkin said. "And I urge them to read it and to take its findings to heart and to do something about it. This is far too significant to just sweep under the rug."
The study was based on analyses by the National Urban League of a 1999 survey of 4,835 federal contractors out of about 100,000 that do business with the federal government. It also included data from population surveys in 1979, 1989 and 1999 and Equal Employment Opportunity reports from 1975-1998.
But according to a Jan. 16 memo obtained by The Associated Press, which cited problems found by the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget, the reports "do little to improve our understanding of the gender wage gap. They have some serious errors that could lead to false conclusion."
Economist Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women's Forum, also questioned methodology used in several drafts of the study she has seen.
What's not taken into account is that women often choose to take jobs that pay less so they have more flexibility and time for children and family, she said. Analysis by her group shows that women want to have more control over how they live their lives.
"Women make decisions all the time based on things other than salary — enjoyment of the job and ability to have time with their families," she said.
Her group supports policies that allow women to have flexibility in their jobs through compensatory time or flex time.
But Democrats and women's groups continue to push for Congress to strengthen the Equity Pay Act that requires employers to pay equal wages for equal work. They also want better enforcement of current laws and more job training for women.
"Neither Congress nor employers will give working women equal pay unless they ask for it," said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson.
Harkin again is proposing a Fair Pay Act, which would require employers to pay workers based on skills, effort, responsibility and effort, "regardless if the job is considered so-called women's work," he said.