Past hoax · Filed Oct 31, 2026
The 77 Cents Hoax
Women still make 77 cents on the dollar for what men make, for the same work.
The claim
Women still make 77 cents on the dollar for what men make, for the same work.
What it was
The 77 cents was a Census median for all full-time, year-round workers in 2010. On the tape Maddow asks if it is the same work. Alex Castellanos says no. The Bureau’s weekly figure, then and now, is a different number, and it is still not a same-job audit.
Timeline
1963
The Equal Pay Act makes it illegal to pay a woman less than a man for equal work in the same establishment.
2010
The Census Bureau’s annual figure, full-time year-round workers, is 77 cents. That is the number still on television two years later. It is a ratio of two medians, not a same-job audit.
2011
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers at $684 for women and $832 for men. That is 82 cents. A different cut, and still not the same job.
Apr 29, 2012
Meet the Press. Maddow says 77 cents and asks if it is the same work. Castellanos says no, and gives hours and occupation. She calls that a “math is hard” part. He says it is.
2024–2025
Weekly, full time, the Bureau’s 2025 figure is 82 cents. Among people who usually work 40 hours, the 2024 report had women at 87 percent of men. The Census annual number for 2024 is 81 cents.
Oct 31, 2026
Prager posts the old exchange and asks the employer question. If the same work really cost 23 percent less, why hire the man.
What aired
Dennis Prager, posted October 31, 2026. Fifty seconds. Facebook’s title is “What do you think? Watch to find out why there is no gender wage gap.” When this was pulled the count was about 209,000 views. The first half is a PragerU clip of Meet the Press, April 29, 2012, “The Women’s Vote, Decision 2012.” Rachel Maddow, captioned as the host of her own show, says women in this country still make $0.77 on the dollar for what men make. She asks if women don’t make less than men. Alex Castellanos, the Republican strategist on the panel, says if you start looking at the numbers there are lots of reasons. She cuts him off. “Don’t tell me the reasons why. Do women make less than men for doing the same work?” He says no. She says wow. He says men work an average of 44 hours a week and women work 41, and that men go into engineering, science, and math, which pay more, and that women want more flexibility. She says this is not a “math is hard” part. He says yes, it is, actually. Then Prager, to the camera: he has never understood the claim that women are paid less for the exact same work and the exact same length of work. If that were true, why would any employer employ a man, if the same results were available for a lot less money.
The record
The 77 cents was a real Census number, and it was not the thing she asked him to confirm. The Census Bureau’s figure for 2010, the latest annual number on the table that Sunday, was that the median earnings of women working full time, year round, were 77 percent of the median for men. That is every full-time, year-round job in the country, stacked into two medians. It is not the same job, the same hours, or the same employer. The Bureau of Labor Statistics was already publishing a different cut. In 2011, median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers were $684 for women and $832 for men. That is 82 cents, not 77, and it is still not a same-job comparison. Paying a woman less than a man for the same work in the same establishment has been illegal since the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
Left out
Left out of “77 cents for the same work” is the question she asked and the answer she got. He said it is not the same work. The hours and the occupations are the reasons he was not allowed to finish. Also left out is what the number does when the hours are held still. In the Bureau’s 2024 report, women who usually worked 40 hours a week earned 87 percent of what men who usually worked 40 hours earned. That is still an average across jobs. It is not 77, and it is not a finding that the same job pays 77. The current weekly figure for all full-time workers, out in January 2026 for the year 2025, is 82 cents: $1,089 and $1,326. The Census annual figure for full-time, year-round workers in 2024 is 81 cents, $57,520 and $71,090. The slogan kept the 2010 annual median and dropped the denominator.
Why it stuck
“77 cents” stuck because it sounds like a paycheck. A woman hears that her own check is missing a quarter, not that the median woman in the whole economy earns less than the median man for a list of reasons that includes hours and occupation. Once it is a stolen quarter, the explanation is an insult, which is why “math is hard” landed the way it did. The sentence that would have to be true, for Prager’s question to have a different answer, is the one she asked and he denied: less money for the same work. An employer who could buy the same hour from a woman at a 23 percent discount would not keep paying men the higher rate. The law already says he cannot. The Census median is not that discount.