But consider the mischief contained in that “or more.” It makes the full-time category embrace everyone from a clerk who arrives at her desk at 9 am and leaves promptly at 4 pm to a trial lawyer who eats dinner four nights a week—and lunch on weekends—at his desk. I assume, in this case, that the clerk is a woman and the lawyer a man for the simple reason that—and here is an average that proofers rarely mention—full-time men work more hours than full-time women do. In 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 27 percent of male full-time workers had workweeks of 41 or more hours, compared with 15 percent of female full-time workers; meanwhile, just 4 percent of full-time men worked 35 to 39 hours a week, while 12 percent of women did. Since FTYR men work more than FTYR women do, it shouldn’t be surprising that the men, on average, earn more.
There's a reason women earn less than men - women are smart enough to avoid spending their lives chasing more money. Thus they work less. Perhaps they also have divided responsibilities, since, perversely, men cannot have children without women, and therefore, women spend more time taking care of children and less time working. Either way, as the author rightly concludes, for those who demand government interventino to right this wrong, "no government anywhere has ever fulfilled—and that no government ever will".
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