This past weekend Senator Kerry said in his national radio address: “Today, women continue to make just 76 cents for every dollar earned by men. And George Bush’s chief economist at the Department of Labor has claimed that the pay gap is ‘phony’ and a ‘fiction.'”

On radio and in a recent series of press statements, Senator Kerry claimed that “George Bush’s chief economist at the Department of Labor” is wrong.

The economist whom Senator Kerry attacked is Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an Oxford-educated, prolific writer on labor economics, who happens to be my wife and the mother of our six children. If he bothered to ask other leading labor economists in America about whether there is a 24-cent wage gap among men and women in the same job with the same experience, they would agree that the number is wrong.

American women do not need to be belittled. There are no limits to the careers they can pursue: doctor, lawyer, U.S. Senator, even chief economist of the Department of Labor.

In Senator Kerry’s view of America, economic logic has been willed away. If American businesses could pay the more than 60 million American women who work outside the home only 76 cents on the dollar, no rational business would ever hire men.

Senator Kerry cannot name even one employer in America who pays its women workers only three-quarters of what it pays men. A business that paid women less than men for the same job would be sued and brought to justice. American employers, many of whom are women, are rarely sexist in their employment decisions. Despite a few high-profile cases, employer liability for overtime violations dwarfs liability for all types of discrimination.

The 76-cent wage figure is an average of all women’s wages divided by all men’s wages. The reasons for this average gap, which has been closing over time are logical, not sinister.

Our workforce holds more senior level men, because women only started moving into the professional fields in great numbers in the 1970s. In college, more women continue to choose to major in lower-paying fields such as English literature and history, and more men choose math and science. Most important, many women take time out of the labor force to have and to raise children, and trade higher salaries for more family time. These are personal choices reflective of a free society.

If one adjusts for age, vocational choice, experience, and time in the workforce, the wage gap narrows or even disappears.

Senator Kerry also says: “When I’m president, we’ll fight to close the pay gap once and for all, because equal work deserves equal pay – no ands, ifs, or buts about it.”

Be careful, Senator Kerry. “Equal pay for equal work” is a code for laws to classify all jobs in America and subject them to salary guidelines. The programs are designed to allow bureaucrats to judge how much an individual should be paid based on the “worth” of a job rather than market conditions.

Not even the socialist democracies of Western Europe could stomach this form of government interference.

Senator Kerry rails against “Benedict Arnold” corporations that create jobs overseas. But his solutions to the “wage gap” and “equal pay for equal work,” if implemented, would send countless American jobs packing offshore. Not only would the Federal government be closely regulating wages, but companies would face unending litigation about job classifications.

Senator Kerry views America as failing. He panders for women’s votes by negating their achievements both as stay-at-home moms and women who work outside the home. He promises what he has no intention of delivering.

Senator Kerry’s political rhetoric about women reveals his own credibility gap. Everyone knows that, if elected president, he would not implement all of the socialist programs he promises on the campaign stump, if for no other reason than most could not win passage in Congress. But no one knows just how far he would go in regulating American businesses – and that’s scary.

It is precisely Senator Kerry’s credibility gap, the difference between what he promises and what he would actually do, that is the most confounding aspect of his candidacy. Americans look to government for honest answers, not cynical campaign messages.

Mr. Furchtgott-Roth, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.