Ethics

82 Percent of Lowest Paid Staff Were Women

We already know Romney's "binders full of women" story was a lie and that the binders in question were delivered to him by an outside group. They were not something he curated or requested.

What you may not know is that there was a tremendous amount of pay inequality in his administration.

According to the very liberal Wall Street Journal, 60 percent of the lowest paid staff were women when Romney entered office, but by the time he left office that number ballooned to 82 percent of the lowest paid staff.

Two of the 10 highest-paid members of Mitt Romney’s gubernatorial staff were women in 2003, his first year as Massachusetts governor, and on average full-time women staffers earned 25% less than male staffers that year, according to data from the Massachusetts Comptroller’s office.

A main reason for the low average for women was that 60% of the lowest-paid full-time staff in 2003 – those earning $25,000 a year or less — were female.

By the last year of Mr. Romney’s tenure as governor, 2006, four of the 10 highest-paid staffers were women, and 82% of the lowest-paid full-time staff were, the data show. Female staffers that year earned, on average, 29% less than their male counterparts.

Furthermore, the number of women in senior positions actually went down by almost 50 percent by the time he left office.

A study by the University of Massachusetts Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy showed that 42% of Mr. Romney’s senior-level appointments were women during his first two years in office, and that percentage dropped to 25% in his final two years.

At the end Romney's term as governor, the number of women working the lowest paid positions increased from 60 to 82 percent, pay inequality increased from 25 to 29 percent, and the number of women in senior positions was cut from 42 to 25 percent.