by Ryan McMaken
Mises.org
The Daily Show has recently been waging an ideological campaign in the pursuit of raising compensation for female soccer players. It turns out that the women’s teams aren’t paid as much as the men’s teams.
The Daily Show‘s key piece of “evidence,” a chart showing comparative compensation rates, has been making the rounds in social media today:
[…] The thought of looking up information on professional soccer salaries puts me to sleep, so I’m just going to assume these numbers are true and proceed with the economic argument.
The core argument being made by the economists at Comedy Central is that the women’s team has more “value” than the men’s team because the women’s team wins more games, and that being a soccer player is strenuous whether or not one is a man or a woman. Again, I’m just going to assume the assertions about win totals and strenuousness are true since I don’t know any of the five people who watch American soccer teams.