Fine, fine: it’s more like seven-tenths. Three-fifths has more of a… resonance, though.
…there is a racial pay gap in campaign politics. Asian, Black and Latino staffers are paid less than their white counterparts, according to an analysis by the New Organizing Institute.
For example, African-American staffers on Democratic campaigns were paid 70 cents for each dollar their white counterparts made. For Hispanic staffers in Democratic campaigns, the figure was 68 cents on the dollar.
I’m not going to give The Daily Beast opportunities for agitprop: they’re rather desperate to make this a bipartisan problem. However, if you take the time to pull the original numbers by NOI, you’ll find the following:
- Most importantly, NOI looked at a lot more Democratic campaigns than Republican ones. That makes the entire comparison process highly suspect. Not that we’re not going to do it anyway, given that the results are pretty useful for GOP partisan hacks like myself.
- Moving along from that: Republicans pay their staffers more, period. Minority Republican staffers make more than White Democratic ones. Female Republican staffers make more than male Democratic ones. Ambitious political types with no ideological hangups, take note.
- Crunching NOI’s numbers, minority Republican staffers make 88-89% of their White counterparts (Asians make 93% in both parties). Female Republican staffers make 97% of their male counterparts (female Democratic staffers make 95%, which is better than the White House is managing). Whether this is an artifact of sample size, or something that needs to be actively addressed, is beyond the scope of these talking points.
Also note: as far as I can tell, all of the complaints in that article are from Democratic minority operatives who are regularly getting objectified, pigeonholed, marginalized, and generally oppressed by their ostensible Establishment Democratic saviors. I’d normally have some sympathy for those folks – people should be paid what they’re worth – and I suppose that I actually do. But it’s a very dry, understated sympathy. With an aftertaste of You brought this upon yourselves, you know.
Because they did.
Via Instapundit.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Nothing will be done about this, by the way. After all, what are minority staffers going to do about it? Vote Republican?