The world said goodbye to Mary Tyler Moore yesterday. They did a touching tribute to her TV and Movie career on the Today Show this morning. One particular clip caught my attention… On the Mary Tyler Moore show she was arguing with fellow actor Ed Asner, who played her boss on the show, that a woman doing the same job as a man should be getting the same pay. That was in 1972, 45 years ago, and I thought to myself that the show I’m watching, NBC’s Today Show, is a great example of how little progress we’ve made after all those years.
The co-hosts of the Today Show, Savanah Guthrie and Matt Lauer by all appearances do the same job on the show. However, when you look at their reported salaries the story is quite different. Lauer makes $28 million a year and Guthrie gets paid a measly $500,000. I have to wonder why nobody as a guest on the show brings up the huge disparity between the two salaries.
That may change one of these days if the subject of equal pay for equal work ever comes up when they are talking to someone from the Trump administration. It’s been less than a week, but so far I’m liking the way President Trump’s spokespersons have been dealing with the media.