The Paycheck Fairness Act failed in the Senate last night—which is good news for women, since it would have been a job-killer for everyone who is not a trial lawyer. 

As I wrote on National Review yesterday, it was also a good day in exposing the fundamental lie that underpins so much of this “War on Women” rhetoric and the push for bigger government to protect women from an inherently sexist society.

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker explored the different data sets behind the endlessly repeated claim that “women earn 77 cents for a man’s dollar” and concluded:

This brings us to our larger point: Broad comparisons are inherently problematic. As the BLS points out: “Users should note that the comparisons of earnings in this report are on a broad level and do not control for many factors that may be significant in explaining earnings differences.”

Furthermore he highlighted Labor Department data showing that once other characteristics are controlled for “much of the hourly wage gap dwindled, to about 5 cents on the dollar.”

At IWF, we’ve been making this case for years (and years and years).  Good to see the Washington Post has finally caught up, and perhaps the mainstream media will stop parroting this “War on Women” nonsense quite so readily.