Contested values: Economic expertise in the comparable worth controversy, USA, 1979–1989

Abstract

The comparable worth principle – a call for a general readjustment of wages according to a measure of the worth of an occupation – gained policy momentum in the United States in the early 1980s. A Supreme Court decision, multiple bills, congressional hearings as well as an arsenal of initiatives from women and labour groups all over the United States shaped the debate both as a technical as well as a political issue. At the core of the quarrel lie diverse opinions on the criteria and practices of setting fair wages. This paper follows the deployment of economic arguments on both sides of the controversy between the start of a national movement in 1979, and when all US government agencies declared the principle unsound in 1985. The dominant view on the origin of biases affecting pay practices and the criteria for rational wage determination shifted radically over this period: from the market to job analysts for the responsibility of the biases, and from bureaucratic procedures to market for the locus of rationality. I document this shift using discussions about scientific evidence brought by economists in legal and political hearings. The paper describes three moments in the relationship between science and policy: first the scientization of policy, second, the politicization of knowledge claims, and finally, the weaponization of economic knowledge.