Posted by WASHINGTON – A recently completed study in Australia has concluded that it pays to be tall – literally. The research indicates that on average, workers’ salaries rise $789 per year for every inch of their height. Thus, someone six feet tall could expect to earn almost $1,000 more per year than someone only 5’10”.
The study reinforces findings from earlier surveys that show taller people average higher salaries after adjusting for all other variables.
Reaction from the Obama administration was prompt. “We are referring this matter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and urging them to react with swift and summary enforcement,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who refused to disclose her own height but who is known to stand on phone books staffers place behind her podium during press conferences.
The EEOC will indeed look into the matter, said Raggedy Mint, a spokesperson with the bureaucracy, and expects “imminent adjudication.”
“It’s high time that workplaces are punished for discriminating against vertically challenged members of the labor force,” said Mint.
Mint is 5’2” but, ironically, height hasn’t held back his own career. “I earn $7,661 per inch annually because I am fortunate enough to work for a progressive administration. But someone has to look out for all the short Americans out there who don’t share that same good fortune, and that’s where the EEOC comes in.”
When asked if height could have played a role in the victory of Obama, nearly 6’2”, over John McCain, barely 5’8”, Mint dismissed the notion. “Even if height did play a role in the election – which it didn’t – it would simply be a case of the right thing happening for the wrong reason,” he said.
It's a tall person's world, and others are just trying to get by in it.
The reasons for the pay disparity remain unclear, according to the authors of the study. But whether due to a positive feedback loop of self confidence garnered from years of shoving their lessers around on the playground or simply to the fact that bosses appreciate employees who can fetch things from the top shelf, one thing is certain – the income gap can total hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.
“It’s not right that vertically challenged people’s salaries are being dwarfed by those of their taller colleagues, and that is going to change shortly,” said Solis.
In a press release, the EEOC said that rooting out the iniquities of height-based discrimination would be a “tall order” but that it was committed on seeing the task to completion.
According to the release, the agency has already appropriated the funds to add a new division aimed at fielding complaints about height-based discrimination, researching them and bringing guilty businesses to justice. Staffed by a team of 56,000 federal workers, the new division of the EEOC will be called the Safe Harbor Office for Reporting Transgressions Intended to Encumber Shorties (SHORTIES)
“We’ve got a surprising amount of data already,” said Mint. “But if you see one of our SHORTIES agents in your workplace with a tape measure, we ask that you cooperate fully.
