I have heard Obama saying that he will offer equal pay for men and women... My fiancé and several of my friends would disagree and say that women are paid just as much, if not more than men are paid for the same work... I have read and heard differently. Do women make as much (or more) than men for the same work, or do they make less? Are they less likely to get promoted, or get salary pay? How much less are women paid for the same work as men?

As in all things political and statistical - you can get whatever answer you want:

1. Are men and women paid the same? In general - yes - discrimination in pay due to sex has been illegal for years. So: same job = same pay. You won't find any politicians who would disagree with that, so "equal pay for equal work" is a pretty safe place to be. HOWEVER, factors such as education and length of work experience can affect one's pay. So the average male who has worked in a given job for 20 years may indeed make more than the avarage female of the same age who may have taken a few years off for child rearing. So it's pretty certain that the average woman probably makes less than the average man, but if you correct for the fewer years of experience that the average woman has, it should even out. I am not saying that discrimination does not exist - only that having different average pay does not prove discrimination by itself.

2. The real issue is not equal pay for equal work - but rather it's equal pay for similar work. Many folks would like to think that a woman who goes into a "traditionally female" job such as a librarian should be paid the same as a man who goes into a "traditionally male" job that requires a similar level of education - such as a fire fighter. The devil is in the details - how do you admister such a thing, where presuambly the free markets have already asigned different values to these two different jobs? All such proposals include a very heavy guiding hand from government - and hence are not likely to ever come to pass. I am not aware that Obama (or any major political figure) has endorsed a specific plan for how to do this.

I mean equal work. My cousin who is a woman was working a job at a university in food service for several years. Her fiancé lost his job and applied for a job at her place of work... the SAME place and SAME position that she had. My cousin's fiancé was hired. A little while after, a position of higher-status was available and my cousin was being considered for it. It was soon announced that her fiancé had gotten the position, even though he had not worked there as long, and had less experience.

At one of my own jobs- a fast food place, a woman was training to become a manager. After a year straight of training, she finally up and quit. The guy that took her place became a manager in 3 months, and therefore, got the salary pay that was supposed to go to that woman. My boss does not promote women as managers and is very open about that, I believe this is discrimination, but I don't know what I can do about it.

Also, I used to work at McDonalds- the same place my fiancé used to work at. My starting pay was $5.55... his was $7.50...

I'm asking because I've had much experience with discrimination in my area, and I want to know if my fiancé and my friends are right in saying that women and men generally get paid the same.

I don't doubt that stories like yours happen a lot. The manager who bases promotion decisions on gender is in violation of the law - UNLESS there is a specific need for a male or female worker (for example, a male can't sue an advertising agency that hires a female to play a mother in a TV ad). Such exceptions are prety rare. However, when it comes to promotions into management there are usually intangibles that enter into the decision besides experience - such as how well the person works with others, planning skills, communication skills, etc. Unfortunately this gives a lot of wiggle room for managers - so that they can indeed discriminate if so inclined with little likelihood of getting caught. I've been in management in engineering for many years - and while there are fewer women than men in this field I can tell you with absolute certainty that at each level there is equal pay for equal work and equal capability. However, there is also a pretty thick glass ceiling - experience is highly valued, and so as I noted in my earlier post women who take time off are less likely to be considered for promotion than men of equal capability and age.