Women’s underwear is taxed at higher rates than Men’s

https://www.axios.com/2023/02/13/womens-underwear-tariffs-pink-tax

by cwwc • 3 years ago

26 43 3 years ago

kidme5• 3 years ago

Sin tax?

tptacek• 3 years ago

No, "pink tax" --- it recurs through all sorts of product categories. Products for women are generally higher-priced and have higher taxes and tariffs. The article concludes that this is an artifact of lobbying (different manufacturers/distributors are involved in the promotion of these goods).

johncessna• 3 years ago

And that's Lobbying to protect labor intensive work, which happens to be women's underwear. Not lobbying to tax women more cause they're women.

throwawaymaths2• 3 years ago

In this case it's actually a tax. "Pink tax" usually refers to a strictly market phenomenon whereby for whatever reason women are less price sensitive so they're willing to pay more or won't use the equivalent men's product.

I once saw an inverse pink tax - I got a 30% discount because I didn't care if my hardware set was pink (vs black) and the pink one (marked as supporting breast cancer research) had a woman on the cover. While I was perusing the two a man came by and asked me what the difference was and I said I think it's just pink. He refused to buy it and bought the black one instead. Idiot.

I did try explaining why the pink tax is mostly a market phenomenon using this counterexample as an explanatory tool but the person who I was talking to thought that the pink tax was axiomatic and could not get through her head why something marketed to women (and in this case literally pink) was cheaper. Also idiot.

esaym• 3 years ago

It occurs yes. But in some categories it is inverse. I bought a new in box $300 Chicago Pneumatic 1/2" drive impact for $50 on ebay because it was the pink "breast cancer awareness" version.

JamesBarney• 3 years ago

The original study has some methodological flaws, and there has been a more recent study that found the opposite.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3882214

So it's far from a settled question.

elil178• 3 years ago

TIL it is a sin for me to wear clothes

ajaimk• 3 years ago

The article doesn't actually explain the why or the math behind this. It arbitrarily tells us to believe the headline is true with no sources or math formula showing how this came to be.

I feel like I just wasted 5 mins of my life.

kube-system4• 3 years ago

It's not clear exactly why women's undergarments are taxed at a higher rate. "The patterns seem to date back to lobbying from earlier eras," Rampell writes.
"In the garment industry, U.S. manufacturers might have felt most threatened by foreign competition on more labor-intensive products, which were disproportionately women’s products."

galaxyLogic2• 3 years ago

Yes, except you exercised your brain in critical thinking, which is not wasted effort.

Too many articles have no references and that makes people lulled into accepting that that is just so.

jfengel• 3 years ago

This article had lots of references. It was full of links, practically one per sentence.

qclibre22• 3 years ago

Found this : https://hts.usitc.gov/view/Chapter%2061?release=2023HTSABasi... Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (2023) ARTICLES OF APPAREL AND CLOTHING ACCESSORIES, KNITTED OR CROCHETED. First mention of "women's" and "men's" : Men's or boys' wool overcoats : 61.7¢/kg + 16% Women's wool coats: 55.9¢/kg +16.4%

Looks like they do have differing tariffs for various items. ( edit: see ksherlock reply at same level for cotton underpants info).

ffhhj• 3 years ago

Consider it valuable training to survive the new chatbot age.

ksherlock• 3 years ago

The original source has slightly more detail (see 2. Tarrif Rates)

https://www.progressivepolicy.org/blogs/ppis-trade-fact-of-t...

The original original schedule is here:

https://hts.usitc.gov/view/Chapter%2061?release=2023HTSABasi...

eg,

6108.91.00 - Women's Cotton underpants: 8.5%

6107.11.00 - Men's Cotton underpants: 7.4%

galaxyLogic2• 3 years ago

I read that some religious communities ban front-loading washing machines because through the see-through front door you might be able to see women's underwear.

Scoundreller2• 3 years ago

I’d ban them just because of how unreliable they are (the washing machines, not the unnamed religion).

the_third_wave• 3 years ago

In what sense are they unreliable? I've used both top-loading as well as front-loading machines and have not noticed any difference in reliability, i.e. all of them broke at some time, all of them were easily fixed.

nsxwolf2• 3 years ago

The only hit on Google for this is your comment.

amelius• 3 years ago

A haircut is also more expensive for women.

elil178• 3 years ago

Fine, most women have more hair. But why would the haircut be taxed at a different rate.

kube-system4• 3 years ago

Because the tariffs are almost never set based on the idea of consumer equality, they're usually set based on some sort of protectionism for the supply side of the equation. The main reason they aren't is not out of equality, but because neither mens nor womens haircuts can be imported.

exabrial• 3 years ago

Also from the same author: Airplanes are taxed higher than skittles.

Because airplanes cost $50mil and Skittles cost $0.50.

elil178• 3 years ago

No, as it clearly says in the article, there is a difference in tariff rate. If you dig down to the actual tariff schedules, you will see that women pay a higher tariff rate for underwear even when it is made of the exact same material category as men's underwear. There are literally seperate Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes for men and women's underwear (same thing applies for many other types of clothing, e.g. coats).

CodeSgt• 3 years ago

Same material or not, womens clothing is often more labor intensive to make and therefore more expensive than mens clothes.

autoexec2• 3 years ago

It's a shame they didn't delve into why the rates were set as they are, it'd be nice if the International Trade Commission had to document a justification for their rates, but the article does mention that women's underwear is sold at higher volumes than men's, and are likely more expensive to start with too. The idea that we've been increasing taxes on items which are both more expensive and sell more often doesn't really surprise me.

Sales volume may also help account for why more high quality clothes made from expensive materials that are purchased less often get lower rates than frequently purchased low quality clothing intended for the working class (the majority of purchasers).

adolph• 3 years ago

One of the primary sources is somewhat interesting:

https://www.progressivepolicy.org/blogs/ppis-trade-fact-of-t...

The rates in these 68 lines range from 0.9% to 23.5%, diverging mainly along lines of class and gender. Among the products with clearly comparable female and male items, (a) aristocratic silks are lightly taxed, at 2.1% for women’s panties and 0.9% for male boxers and briefs; (b) the analogous working-class polyesters are heavily taxed, at 14.9% for men and 16.0% for women; and (c) middle-class cottons are, well, in the middle, at 7.6% for women and 7.4% for men. The highest rates fall on women’s products in heading 6212 with no obvious masculine counterpart: brassieres in a range from 4.8% (silk) to 16.9% (cotton or polyester), girdles 20%, and corsets 23.5%.

The rate data can be found here:

https://hts.usitc.gov/current

legitster• 3 years ago

It's unlikely the panty gender gap is intentionally discriminatory. It's not clear exactly why women's undergarments are taxed at a higher rate. "The patterns seem to date back to lobbying from earlier eras," Rampell writes.

This article is intentionally being dense. Tariff schedules are completely arbitrary and entirely set by industry lobbying. Historically, the market for women's underwear was different (different stores, different manufacturers, different consumer preferences). So at some point there was a domestic women's underwear industry that intentionally sought higher tariffs on their own product.

number6• 3 years ago

As a man I can't run around naked without being a public disturbance (at least in my country) a woman however can. So this seems to be just fair /s

Women’s underwear is taxed at higher rates than Men’s

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