A Michigan study conducted in the early 1980s, accorded the knowledge factor 11 percent weight while the Iowa study gave it 25 percent and the Kansas study 18 percent. In the long run, comparable worth would force employers to hire consultants to compare incomparable jobs. Rankings are from 1 to 3, with 1 being the highest rated of the three jobs and 3 the job of least value among the three. The comparison of duties, responsibilities, education requirements, and working conditions, in order to establish comparable worth guidelines are inherently dependent on the unique values of each individual evaluator. No objective means of weighing different skills and experiences exist.
Comparable worth is an unnatural attempt to impose a universal standard of job value.
In a free market, the value of a job is determined by the supply and demand of workers in a given profession. Thus if chemists are paid more than nurses, it is because there is a greater demand for them in the marketplace. If a glut of chemists and a shortage of nurses occur, this would tend to decrease the salaries of chemists and increase those of nurses. Comparable worth point value assessments can't take into account these changing demands of the marketplace. If, in spite of market demand, the government mandates that nurses be paid more than chemists, fewer people will be willing to make the sacrifices to become chemists and more will become nurses.