Pay Gap in Massachusetts -- And In The White House -- Nothing To Do With The Bakken

On the way into Harvard Square, Cambridge, on the Metro, this little gem from the metro_news:

As the Bay State continues to lag behind the national average for equal women's earnings, a group of female state legislators is pressing a bill concerning equalizing pay for women in comparable jobs as men.

I remember thirty to forty years ago, the argument regarding unequal pay between the sexes had more to do with the types of jobs each held, for example, policeman vs teacher.

In Massachusetts, a "liberal" state with huge numbers of both men and women working in the same fields, education and medicine, that argument does not hold water.

It never dawned on me that Massachusetts lagged the national average, at 80 cents (women) on the dollar (men). Pretty sad. Pretty enlightening.

But it's even more surprising to see this in the White House. I can understand the pay differential between Buffett and his secretary and how that would skew results at Berkshire Hathaway just because of the enormity of the single CEO/secretary gap, but the president really doesn't get paid that much more than staffers, comparing salaries only.  Doesn't the president only get $400,000/year?