Women’s underwear is taxed at higher rates than Men’s | Hacker News Reader

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

axios.com

26 pointscwwc43 comments

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.

> 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."

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.

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

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).

Consider it valuable training to survive the new chatbot age.

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%

> 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.

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

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

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

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

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).

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

Then I will pay a higher dollar amount of tariffs for each garment. But why does that mean that I should have to pay a higher tariff rate?

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).

Unfortunately most tariff decisions happen behind closed doors. It's an area of the law plagued by special interests.

Wait what? You want ACTUAL journalism...?

A haircut is also more expensive for women.

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

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.

While I'm not a fan of tariffs overall, if we're going to have them would it not be reasonable to have some modicum of thought put into not having them be horribly unfair towards the average citizen? Why should I have to pay a higher tax rate on my underwear just because I'm a woman? Why should I have to pay a higher tax rate on my polyester clothes compared to some rich person who buys silk everything?

I'm not saying it's destined to change or even that it should be super high on anyone's policy priority list. But can we not just acknowledge that this is just infuriatingly unfair? That a good system would not have a policy like this?

There usually are political discussions about the impact on consumers when tariffs are implemented. They just aren't the only consideration. Often some sort of compromise is the end result.

How do you know that? Aren’t most tariff decisions done behind closed doors?

The topic of tariffs came up a lot as a part of public political discourse in the previous political cycle. It is ultimately within the authority of Congress.

A lot of it is boring, though: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?congress=__ALL...

Most HTS rates are set by TATA at USTIC. Those bills are the exception, not the rule.

I suspect this is all just because the system is designed to make money. If you could pocket a percentage on every item imported into the country, and you wanted to raise rates by a small amount this year to make more money, would you do it on the cheap polyester clothing that makes up the vast majority of the clothing imported or on the more rarely imported higher quality items?

I know which I'd pick! The most popular items being imported would be more likely to get that increase. If people buy more women's clothing (including underwear) than men's clothing, I'd likely be raising those rates. If women's clothing was both more often imported and more expensive than men's clothing that seems like an even more ideal place to raise rates.

I think that this is another case where the problem is that we have a system designed to make more and more money while the solution requires considering that something (in this case fairness) is more important than maximizing the amount of money to be made.

Sin tax?

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).

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.

Any tax should be based on fair standards and not arbitrary categories.

I would hope this tax is based on E.G. the number of different fabrics in a garment, the complexity of construction steps / seam lengths relative to the utilized quantity of fabric (mm seam compared to mm^2 fabric), possibly excludes some considered basic nice things such as elastic support bands.

> 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.

But of course if the headline and first paragraphs let the reader inaccurately assume it's the latter, you generate more outrage and more clicks.

Honestly, for outrage-bait topics like this, the journalist isn't doing his job if he doesn't discover and explain the actual reason for the fact their reporting "'The patterns seem to date back to lobbying from earlier eras,' Rampell writes," doesn't cut it.

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.

They were probably idiots...

However preference for color, logos, or lack there of, is also a type of utility which can have value.

They were not idiots if they understood and made an informed choice.

The woman on the cover was on the cardboard sleeve, it goes away probably on the first use

I told the guy: (paraphrasing of course, was years ago) "it's cheaper because they needed to lower the price since mostly guys are buying tools and guys don't want pink tools. You should buy the pink one because it's cheaper, I am"

I probably should have told him: "nobody will think you're gay because you have pink tools in your garage. Save yourself some money"

I would pay more for not-pink tools. I really don't like pink.

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.

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.

TIL it is a sin for me to wear clothes

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.

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

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.

Mine over 6 years: Door seal tore and it leaked water on the floor.

Keeps sucking in a sock or whatever and jamming the drain pump. When this happens, your clothes can be trapped unless you have another pump to drain it (or want to unlock the door to a total deluge of water). Clearing the drain pump is a pain because many/most models aren't built with an access port. The screws on mine for the access port are so close to the floor I need to use cardoor entry air bags to lift the thing up.

I suspect a sock once made it passed the drain pump, but clogged the sanitary drain requiring a plumber to unclog (couldn't snake it myself).

The above issues just don't happen in top-loaders.

I also suspect the high-speed spin cycle will lead to premature failure. Clothes do come out dryer, but I hang dry anyway. Water's plentiful where I am.

The only hit on Google for this is your comment.

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