Cuomo Bemoans Gender Inequality In America Even As His Own Administration Displays Wage Gap Higher Than The Average

From the "What A Hypocrite!" file:

At an event at New York University earlier this month, Cuomo bemoaned the “chronic sexism that still exists in society.”

Symptoms of this sexism, he argued, could be found by looking at females’ economic status.

“Women comprise 52 percent of the workforce, but only 14 percent of executive offices, eight percent of top earners, and four percent of Fortune CEOs are women,” he lamented. “Women earn 84 percent in general of what men earn ... they earn $11,000 less per year than their male counterparts.”

This gap is wider in Cuomo’s own administration, where women earn an average of 73 cents for every dollar made by men.

A large majority of employees in the Executive Chamber, all of whom serve at the pleasure of the governor, are women. The 96 females working in Cuomo’s office, however, tend to have the lowest-paying jobs, while the 52 men are disproportionately represented in the positions with the highest salaries and most power.


Despite the fact that there are nearly twice as many women as men working directly for the governor, 21 of the 30 individuals earning more than $140,000 per year are male. Of the ten individuals with the highest salaries, only two (the fourth-higherst, Linda Lacewell and eighth-highest, Melissa DeRosa) are female.

At the other end of the spectrum, 40 of the 57 individuals who make less than $60,000 a year are female. Most of them have the job title “confidential steno,” which is described in various job listings on state websites as “secretarial.” Over 87 percent of people with this title working for Cuomo are women.

Here's how the Politico NY story played on Twitter:

Far fewer women than men in top leadership positions under Cuomo; excellent analysis by @mahoneyw via @politicony: http://t.co/RCgIkCbPsY

— Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) September 15, 2015

Women who work for Gov. Cuomo, the creator of the Women's Equality Party, make an average of 73% as much as men http://t.co/hfSTzJosFk

— Bill Mahoney (@mahoneyw) September 15, 2015

Women earn 84% in general of what men earn ... the gap is wider in Cuomo’s own administration, where women (cont) http://t.co/LRDzKytlM8

— Cuomo Watch (@CuomoWatch) September 15, 2015

When Politico NY questioned the demographic and wage breakdown of the administration, one of Cuomo's attack monkeys flew into action:

“The indisputable fact is that this is the most diverse administration in decades and women occupy positions at the highest levels,” said Cuomo spokesperson Dani Lever. “Any tortured analysis trying to state otherwise simply isn’t accurate.”

Lever did not provide details showing how she concluded that Cuomo’s administration was the most diverse in decades.

...

"This premise is hypocritical, wrong‎ and ignores the fact that women have preeminent positions within the administration and were three out of four court of appeals nominations -- not to mention that the Governor's running mate and second highest ranking official in the entire state is a woman,” Lever later added. “This record surpasses previous administrations, not to mention Politico's own executive hiring practices, the results of which are abysmal by any analysis."

The Politico NY piece had showed how previous administrations had either a similar breakdown of women occupying positions at the highest levels or slightly better, so how the Cuomo flack could say “The indisputable fact is that this is the most diverse administration in decades and women occupy positions at the highest levels" is beyond me.

But that's what Cuomo and his minions do when under attack - attack back and claim everything about the Cuomo administration is "historical" and "without precedent" while their facts are "indisputable."

Steve McLaughlin puts it into pithy perspective:

Cuomo's hypocrisy: Say one thing, do another, have your spokespeople deny and mock the clear and obvious facts. http://t.co/cgxCAAoSRw

— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) September 15, 2015

It's interesting to see how the Cuomo attack monkey reacted to the Politico report because just yesterday, we were hearing how Cuomo had gotten his mojo back thanks to the de Blasio attack, that Cuomo's at his political best when he is out for the "kill" and de Blasio gave him that motivation after he attacked him on NY1 early in the summer.

Now a day after the declaration that Cuomo's mojo back, Cuomo's M.O. is back too - say one thing, do another, deny and mock the clear and obvious facts when called on your hypocrisy.

That's why Cuomo's revived mojo, such as it is, is temporary at best - because his M.O. is never far behind.

There were better ways to deal with this gender inequality story then the "deny and attack" tact the flack took.

But that's pretty much all they do in the Cuomo administration and that's why whatever returned mojo Cuomo appears to be strutting with won't last for long.

Cuomo's his own worst enemy and it's often when he is riding high that he allows his personality flaws and defects to hurt him - as happened here.

Is Cathie Black Getting Savaged Because She's A Woman?

That's one argument that has been floated around the media, first by Gloria Steinem and now others.

But it's jive.

Yes, it's true that I have made fun of her for her plastic surgery and her Park Avenue socialite shindigs, but mostly I have mocked her for being just another corporate whore and hypocrite who takes care of her corporate buddies while laying off the little people.

Frankly, if Bloomberg had picked a man for the job but he was a hedge fund manager with no experience in education other than sitting on the board of a charter school and attending one meeting of that board, I would mock that guy without mercy too.

That's what I do it here at Perdido Street School - point out that the corporate CEO types are running a policy that harms schools, students, teachers, and communities.

So Suze Orman and Whoopi Goldberg and the rest of the women who signed a letter supporting Black can give it a rest.

Here at Perdido Street School and elsewhere in the Real Reformers circle, we don't care about race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

We care about what a particular person thinks and says about education issues.

We care that a particular person supports traditional public schools.

We want a particular person to try and understand what teachers and other school staff go through day-in and day-out trying to educate children this country.

Whenever people bash teachers, talk rot about how great charters are when the data clearly shows differently, or promote corporate privatization policies for public education, we take them down.

Doesn't matter of it's Bush, Obama, Bloomberg, Cuomo, Duncan, Rhee, Klein, Paige, Spellings, Oprah, the ed deform shills at the op-ed pages of the Times or the (now unemployed) teacher bashers from Newsweek.

That's just how it is.

Cathie Black is under the gun now. If she says the right things about education, believe me, that will change.

But she won't.

So far, what we have heard about policy from her is layoffs and more charters.

That's why Bloomberg appointed her.

When that's the policy a particular person pursues, that particular person is going to be savaged by Real Reformers.