Fact Checker: Braley's pay for female staffers

Introduction

'Records show (Rep. Bruce) Braley paid women on his staff 59 cents for every dollar he paid men.'

Source of claim

Priorities for Iowa Fund TV ad running in Iowa

Analysis

The ad used the 2013 Statement of Disbursements with the House of Representatives to collect salaries for full-time employees in Braley's office. Eliminating part-time and shared employees, Priorities for Iowa Fund is able to calculate the average hourly rate for women is about 40-percent less than that of men working in Braley;s office. The figure is skewed based on the current makeup of Braley's congressional staff, which has more men in higher paying roles such as Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff and Communications Director.

We collected salaries for all of Rep. Braley's staff since he took office in 2007 using Legistorm, which pulls data from the same Statements of Disbursements.

We found Rep. Braley's male staffers made an average of $155 per day, compared to $134 dollars per day for female staffers, regardless of job title. That would mean women made 86-cents to every dollar a man earned. That number, too, is skewed because Braley's office has hired significantly more men than women over the years. Our data showed men worked in Braley's office for a total of 30,254 days, compared to 17,885 days worked for women.

When we break down salaries by job title, though, the numbers start to look different. Since 2007, Braley's office employed both men and women in the same position for 11 job titles. Of those 11 roles, 4 paid men more, 5 paid women more and 2 paid men and women equally.

There are specific cases when Braley paid a man more than a woman in the same role. For example, Braley's current Chief of Staff, a man, earns about $400 per day, while Braley's first Chief of Staff in 2008, a woman, earned $339 per day, accounting for inflation. However, there are also specific examples of women making more than men in the same position. For example, on his current staff, Braley pays a female Senior Legislative Assistant about 13-percent more than a man with the same job title. This differentiation can be based largely on the individual staffer's experience and qualifications for the position.

Conclusion

Bruce Braley's average male staffer earns significantly more than the average female staffer, though not as significantly as the ad claims when past years are taken into account. However, that statement still leaves out a lot of context in the fact that most higher-level positions are held by men. When broken down by job title, Braley pays male and female staffers fairly equally.

Braley's office could be criticized for not hiring more women, especially for leadership roles, but not for paying them less to do the same job. While this claim is factually accurate, it is contextually misleading, which is why we give it a D for truthfulness.

Sources:

House of Representatives Statements of Disbursements: http://disbursements.house.gov/archive.shtml