The Obama administration has been a disaster for women

President Obama traveled to Valencia College in Florida in a desperate effort to convince women to stick with Democrats, even though the president’s policies have been a disaster for women.

“We do better when everybody participates, when everybody’s talents are put to use, everybody has a fair shot,” Obama told them. True enough, though none of that has happened under his administration.

He claims that women need a “fair shot” and likes to cite the widely discredited statistic that women only make 77 percent of what men earn. But as economist and American Enterprise Institute Adjunct Scholar June O’Neill recently pointed out, “[t]he 77 percent statistic … simply compares the annual earnings of women and men who are full-time, year-round workers.” It doesn’t factor in relevant differences such as types of jobs or hours worked.

What the president wants is for the bureaucrats who are doing such a good job with Obamacare determining that Job A is “equivalent” to Job B, and therefore must pay the same. What could go wrong?

Pay discrimination has been against federal law for decades. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the federal agency charged with fighting workplace discrimination. Where are the EEOC pay-discrimination lawsuits? There are virtually none. If the president thinks there is evidence of widespread pay discrimination, he should produce it and let the EEOC prosecute.

What about Obama’s claim that we need “everybody participating”? In fact, there has been a mass exodus of women from the workforce — beginning in 2009. As data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank show, women’s labor force participation rate rose steadily from 1950 to the late 1990s, where it leveled off for a decade and then began to decline sharply after Obama became president.

In addition, the president’s lousy economic policies have made life difficult for American families. Women tend to be the ones managing the household expenses, which can be tough if incomes are stagnant and food prices are rising. And according to CBS reporter Michelle Miller, that’s exactly what’s happening.

“Median income is up only 1 percent a year,” Miller recently reported. By contrast, “While the government says prices are up 6.4 percent since 2011, chicken is up 18.4 percent, ground beef is up 16.8 percent and bacon has skyrocketed up 22.8 percent.” The story quotes mother-of-two Jen Singer as saying, “‘The things that are going up in price are the things I absolutely need to buy,” she said. “It’s the meat, it’s the milk, it’s the eggs and it’s getting out of hand.’”

Women also tend to be the ones who take care of their families’ health care needs: taking the kids to the doctor, getting vaccinations, buying the prescription drugs, etc. As virtually all of the studies show—in contradiction to Obama’s claims to the contrary—health insurance premiums are going up significantly. That means women either have to pay more for coverage or get a higher health insurance deductible, which means they are paying more out of pocket for care.

No wonder Obama is trying to shore up the women’s vote; his policies have had a major negative impact on their economic lives. And his trip to Florida makes it clear that it’s only going to get worse.