At some point, we have to get our minds off of this thing that is dividing us and put our minds on what were going to do to fix the country. Host what is your reaction to that . Guest i cannot agree with you more. Unfortunately, the immigration issue is one of the most divisive issues in the country, care, sinceo health that is front and center. But the immigration issue has a lot of divisiveness, a lot of emotion tied to it. And you are right we need an administration and a congress that is going to do what is best for the american people. The late barbara jordan, who chaired the last bipartisan commission, said immigration should serve the National Interest in the interest of american citizens. Is our immigration system truly doing that . It has not been performed in over 20 years now. Atwe do need to look this. When he to look at are we doing enough to enforce immigration laws in the interior and along the border . To continue toed be debated, be discussed, and towardly we can move some sort of legislation, but again commodity to cut passed the rhetoric in order to have policy that serves the National Interest. Host all right, christian and. Ki from numbers usa you can find him Chris Chmielenski from numbers usa. You can find him on twitter. Coming up, our spotlight on magazines, Claire Suddath from Bloomberg Businessweek on the gender wage gap and how companies are working to close it. Later on, we are taking your phone calls on open phones. Stay tuned. Next week during the july 4 recess in primetime on cspan, monday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, author david horwitz. All, communism, socialism, and the social Justice Movement are all models on christianity. They look on the world as a fall in place, although they never use that, words that way. It is a place of injustice. Tuesday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, andbate on Technology Privacy and whether Tech Companies should be required to disclose customer data. Some suggest we should build to allow law order enforcement access to data. The problem with that, we cannot build a backdoor that is only for the u. S. Government, good guys. If you build it for them, it is potentially for everyone. Wednesday, Arizona Supreme CourtJustice Clint bolin. Nt bolick. L ick the most important decision the president will make us who to appoint to the Supreme Court. Been hillary clinton. Ms. Clinton women ascribe to conflict coming their way, and when their insight and information is ignored, it often leads to consequences that might have been uprooted. Avoided. Professor and author William Julius wilson. F. Wilson every citizen is not understand complex forces. Breeding grounds for racial and ethnic tension. Next week on 8 00 at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Washington journal continues. Host joining us now from new york city is Claire Suddath, a staff writer from Bloomberg Businessweek. She is here for our spotlight on magazines to discuss herpes on the continuing wage gap in the u. S. And how companies are working to close it. Claire, thank you for joining us today. Guest thank you for having me. Host in your fees, you talk women make up about 80 of what men do. Talk about how we got there. Is that something that got a steady differential, or have we seen changes over time . Guest when women started working in the workforce insight will numbers come in the 1960s, it was a fraction of what men ite, and over the decades, rose significantly. Stagnation right now. There are a number of factors consultant to that, but i think the primary one is largely that into lowerto go paying fields and within fields into lower paying positions. Women tend to be in health care, nursing, education, so 79 of elementary and middle School Teachers are women. There does not seem to be Much Movement in that. Excerpt your piece, an from your piece in Bloomberg Businessweek, you said, women are the primary breadwinners and half of all u. S. Families. There are more likely to hold a bachelors or masters degree than men, but one of the most intractable and measurable differences between men and women in the united days is the kind of jobs they hold and how much they are paid. The most frequently cited figure when discussing this gender wage gap is that fulltime working women in america earn roughly 80 of what men do. This, and even when in the industries, they are significantly paid less than their male counterparts . Guest that is a good question, and one that we are still trying to figure out. Women are still in these fields that tend to be historically lower pay. When you look at the 20 most common careers for men and 20 most common careers for women, only about 4 overlap, and those maledominated fields actually makes a much more money compared withmen, compared to a man a High School Degree is still likely to make more money than a woman with some college or associates degree. Some of that is the way we pay people. High School Teachers make more than elementary School Teachers 5,000 or 6,000 more. Home Health Care Aides make 22,000 a year, and women tend to be in these fields. They are not as well represented in s. T. E. M. , science and math fields, they are not as represented in finance. A good way to look at it is Computer Science in particular, when it was early on in those days of the field, it was considered a low level task, typing or copying. Then they started to think about it as a way to design the technological future, and the percentage of women earning Computer Science degrees in the u. S. Has dropped about 37 , i think, in 1984, to 18 now. It is significantly smaller. Is that because they are suddenly not interested in it, or because it is not as big of a field . Host were talking with Claire Suddath, a staff writer at. Loomberg businessweek we are talking about her piece discussing the continuing gender gap in wages in the u. S. And what some companies are doing to combat it. Democrats can call 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. And independents, 202 7488002. Got that wrong. We have regional lines. Eastern times on, eastern and central time zone, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. I apologize for that. I clearly need more coffee. [laughter] host can you describe for us, clear, what is clustering . Guest clustering is women or in certain fields. Also, you can break it down by race for the 80 figure is as equally, but if you look at it and break it down by racial demographics, black women make 67 of what white men do. Women 57 . They are twice as likely as white women to be in service industries. That is what we are talking about here, given the demographics of the country, certain demographics are clustered into certain fields. And you may have a company like, lets say microsoft, about 30 of employees are women, but when you move up in the ranks, to the executive level, that number drops down into the teens. Abouttalk a little federal and state laws. Talk about the act that prohibits sex places termination between men and women. What can federal and state officials do, and what have they done to try to close the gap . Guest i want to say first the equal pay act has been around it is addressed dissemination as for as race and gender. Employers can compensate employees differently. While it is not technically illegal under the one specific model because one male employee is paid more, when you look at it as a whole under the u. S. Economy, this is something that is occurring over and over again , which is leading people to say one law is not enough. States also have laws. In massachusetts, you are not allowed to negotiate a salary based on someones existing salary at their last job. Are paidis that people lower and that gap follows them over their career. Something similar in new york city is going into effect in october, i believe here in california has a law that says the employer pays employees who do i think the term is substantially similar work if the employer pays them unequally, it has to explain why. At the federal level, there is the fair pay act in 2009, which allows someone who discovers that they happens committed in pay tod pay to sue for back pay. Days for the last unfair paycheck. Host stevens calling from phoenix, arizona. Good morning, steve. Caller good morning, and thank you for cspan. My personal belief is that Companies Since companies are in the business to make money, they actually get two benefits from hiring ladies. First, look, we are progressing, we are hiring women, and then they get the benefit of not paying them the full amount, like you say, 20 or 30 less. These companies advertising as progressive are nicely profiting themselves. It is my belief that the next stock market crash, it is not men versus women, it is Company Versus workers. Thank you. Guest you make several good points. Men were unemployed at a higher whether oromen were, not it was because companies looked and picked one over another, i do not know. But the fields of manufacturing are heavily maledominated and lost a lot of jobs, so the word out of work in the way that maybe elementary School Teachers, we still needed them in 2008 and 2009. An interesting point when you say companies are benefiting from paying women less. That may be true in any one sort of pay period, but over time, when you have women who feel that they are undervalued in their jobs or who dont have the opportunity to move up, they may leave. I talked to a Company Called corning in upstate new york that has been doing this since the 1980s, and in 1984 or so, they realized women were leaving the company in droves. In exit interviews, they would ask them, why are you going . And they would say, i do not have an opportunity. All my bosses are men. I am having a hard time raising fulltime. Working the company realized it was spending about 3. 5 million in the 1980s to train, recruit, and replace these women. So they put structures and placements are other women in the company were being hired and promoted in the same way that men were, they started subsidizing daycare they have a very successful daycare policy where they underwrite local daycare centers, and they allow employees to pay on a sliding scale. The end of that is essentially in short, yes, you maybe you do save a little bit of money, but longterm, it is probably not beneficial for you. Andrewea calling calling from virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning. I want to talk about peoples developing careers. I wonder what techniques you with support in regards to encouraging young women to go into the s. T. E. M. Field, when it comes to increasing enrollment, for example. Guest i think there are a number of very good programs out , i think girls, middle and High School Age girls know how to use computer programs, that sort of thing. But i also think colleges need to start looking at this. I do not know exactly what and any one indivi college could implement, but if you have 18 of your undergraduate class coming out with science degrees compared to the rest are all men, then you probably need to look at, well, how do i talk to the undergraduates . Men feelmake sure that valued in the class, do not feel like they are not being heard . Isalked to one woman who actually not in the story, but she was talking about how she is now very high up in artificial intelligence. And college, she did not necessarily think about the fact how everyone in her class was men, but when she got higher and higher in her field, she was in her office one day, as she heard down the hall a woman laughing, and she realized it had been days at work since she had heard a female voice. Even though she had stayed in the field, she does feel like an outsider. So i think we need to make sure that anyone who is not represented in the feel theyre working in, whether they be a minority, and, whatever, they feel valued. Host we are talking with Claire Suddath, a staff writer at Bloomberg Businessweek, about her magazine piece. Why cant the country just fix the gender wage gap . That can be found at business week. Com. If you talk about the impact the gender gap has on men, explain that a little bit. Guest there are studies out thereguest that say when women move into fields in a sizable numbers, i think a good example design, for everyone in that field is stopped, including men. Why are we valuing womens work this way . I dont know. I dont want to come out and give broad reasons for this, but i think also men, they do work in these fields that are also including large numbers of women. Women come if women are half the breadwinners in the family, they automatically paid less and doing more of the they do more work at home. That also puts a strain on men. Men do not have a good options where they work. Most companies do not have guaranteed with her the lead definitely not for men. So we need to look at it as a whole rather than one group versus the other. Host randy is calling from amsterdam, new york. You are on with clear. Caller good morning. Thank you to cspan. This topic has been debunked years ago. Wage gap. O no economist takes this serious. Teachers work 180 days a year. Electricians work for more hours and far longer than that. Men are far more likely to choose careers that are more dangerous, so obviously they pay more. Loggers, pilots those are maileddominated jobs maildominated jobs. So they are paid more. Women choose not to go into longer working hours. They like to put vacations and have children and things of that nature, this topic has been debunked a long time ago. Host claire, your response . Guest i think it is very interesting that you say that considering nearly every organization that studies this has found over and over again that this does exist. You can look at Census Bureau data, the bureau of labor statistics data, you can look at isa good website to go to selfdoor, which is reported data. That what they do find is because of choices that women make, yes, they do often times, they are more likely to work parttime than men. They are more likely to take time off when they have children. Obviously some of that is biologically required. But they may be gone for several years. I find itchoices, and interesting because in the like 60 hen something of women work, which is 80 today, it seems like when women are given the opportunity, overwhelmingly, they choose to work. A pointe have got to where it is where before it was not. Why are women making these choices . Are paides if they less than men, daycare costs in this country are so high, that if you have a couple that is raising children and one is paid less, and daycare costs costs most of the salary, she will be the one most likely to lose the job. But if she is the breadwinner in the family and the man does not make as much, social norms dictates he will probably not be want to drop out of the job. They will probably both be working and put the child into daycare. So what is a choice, and what is a necessity . I dont know. That is an argument we have to have around the country. , to Companies Care about the pay which got, and have any of them implemented policies to help . Bridge it . My thinkah, actually yes, and we have only started see this in the past few years. Overall, most companies are not doing much, at least not publicly, but there had been in the past few years a number of that have come out and said they looked at their own data internally. It could be the clustering problem, it could be that in some companies, they found that women were just being compensated less for no good reason. A good company that has been isy vocal about this salesforce, a Software Company in silicon valley. They come in 2016, to this internal analysis and found that a percentage of their employees were being in a split way being inexplicably underpaid. Tothey set about 2 million readdress everyones salaries. They had to move stuff around again for about 11 of their employees. Of that is salesforce is growing a lot right now. They acquired other companies, some people were coming in again with these wage gaps, and they are having to bridge that as they move forward every year, but that is something that they value and thing to have been doing. In the end what they are doing as a company, we get a picture of ok, at least in the software field, at least in california, are somewhat paying attention to this. Host kathleen from temples, maryland, you are on the line with Claire Suddath. Caller good morning, how are you . Thatint is africanamerican people were not allowed to vote. Women of all races were not allowed to vote. We were actually considered secondclass citizens. My point is why are we even talking about this because we be equal. What is the point . Guest what is the point . Host yeah, go ahead, claire. Guest i think the point is that we keep trying. Where we are as a society now is vastly different from where we were years ago. A whole are facing different problems than africanamericans, but i think we are least getting to the point where in the minority for women come up we are talking about stuff. I am not sure the conversations we are having in this country are conversations we would have had 30, 40 years ago. Gaping about the wage specifically, a lot of the 1960s to the 1990s, we made great strides. Women have become Supreme Court justices. They are astronauts, lawyers, doctors. Not is something that did exist in previous generations. I want to point out about women in the government, the federal government, there is a story in roll call that points out that in the white house, there is a gender gap come a gender wage gap. Donald trump of our control trumps has a salary of zero dollars. The annual report to congress from the executive office of the president shows that women are an average of 84,000 compared to 105,000 for men. Guest women made about 11 less than men, and that is a lot due to the clustering issue. Not justmen maybe even elected officials working in the white house. They tend to be in higherpaying positions, chief of staff, that sort of thing. Women are often times in the scheduling position, and their wages are much lower. Bruce is on the line from laurel, maryland. Good morning. Caller you talk about minorities, and actually it is very low. Whites. Ake more than if you go back to the original gender studies, they did not say it was based on discrimination. Them, amongquote females than males, taking time off to not apply, the salaries is virtually equal, yet single women without children make 17 more than men in that same demographic. If you go to parttime for the same hours, women actually make more. I think you will find it is because of the media, companies are afraid not to pay women more than they would get. So i think most of the discrimination is against men. When you say 80 , and taken out of context, you are really saying almost nothing. Hopefully we will put this into context. It is true that when you look at asians, asian men make more than white men, and asian women make more than white women, but asian women make less than white men and asian men. Blackvery racial group women make less than black man, latina women make less than thato man i am unaware single women make more than single men. There are studies out there that look at the gap and how it changed over time when women are just out of college between 22 and 27. Make almost as equal as males. Host lisa is on the line from houston, texas. You are on with Claire Suddath. Caller hello. Thank you for cspan. I was having a question about a , isarison between workers they alsoloyees consider, for example, i am thinking of the difference between a ceo of a Major Company and a small proprietor who just is trying to create better company. For example, i just wanted to give, like my daughter, she is a firstyear Computer Science i noticed the hours she has to put in third she rides a bus to the