What women’s underwear tells us about our trade system

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, trade researcher Ed Gresser engaged in the most romantic of exercises: He looked up tariffs on underwear. (No judgment. We all have hobbies.) Lo and behold, he found that ladies’ undergarments are systematically taxed at higher rates than men’s.

The average U.S. tariff rate on men’s underwear is 11.5%. The average rate on women’s undies, on the other hand? It’s a few points higher, at 15.5%. All things considered — including transportation costs, sales taxes, marketing, different retailer markups — Gresser estimates that on average the U.S. tariff system adds about $1.10 to the cost of each pair of women’s underwear, compared with 75 cents for men’s.

In almost any other context, women’s rights groups would be livid. Yet when it comes to the U.S. trade system, such discrimination gets a pass.

Unfairness on underwear reflects a broader, bizarrely anti-lady pattern in our trade system: With a few exceptions, men’s apparel items are more lightly tariffed than women’s.

When people talk about “pink taxes,” they don’t typically mean literal taxes on women’s products. The term refers to companies charging higher markups on women’s products than on very similar men’s products (such as razors, deodorant, body wash). Some recent studies have cast doubt on the widespread existence of this companyenforced price-discrimination, but nonetheless indignant calls for gender-based price parity are common in the media, NGO reports and occasionally even Capitol Hill.

But what of the “pink tax” that is literally mandated by U.S. trade laws — that is, higher import tax charged by the U.S. government on ladies’ clothes and other items? Few seem to recognize its existence, let alone organize petitions calling for its elimination.

Incidentally, gender is not the only dimension on which U.S. trade policies are systemically discriminatory. The even starker pattern Gresser (a former U.S. trade official, now a vice president at the Progressive Policy Institute) and other researchers have identified over the years involves disparate impacts by income class.

For example, let’s return to the item of the day, your spicy Valentine’s Day gift: U.S. tariffs on underwear also vary considerably depending on how high- or low-end the material is. Fancier silk products are by far the most lightly taxed (2.1% for women’s panties and 0.9% for male boxers and briefs); middle-class cotton options have slightly higher tariffs (7.6% for women and 7.4% for men); and working-class polyesters are most heavily taxed (16% for women, 14.9% for men).

This regressive tariff pattern exists across many categories. “Almost invariably, things made of cheap, simple materials meant for mass markets are taxed more heavily than those made for elite, richer buyers,” Gresser says.

Luxurious cashmere sweaters face lower tariffs than do acrylic ones. Likewise with snakeskin or leather handbags vs. canvas purses. In a metaphor that’s almost too on the nose, even silver spoons get preferential tax treatment, when compared with their cheaper stainless steel counterparts.

Gresser says it doesn’t generally work this way in other countries: U.S. trade barriers appear unusually sexist and regressive, and have been for many, many decades.

It’s not exactly clear why the U.S. trade system is so rigged against women and the working class, but the patterns seem to date back to lobbying from earlier eras.

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. (“Women’s clothing often has more lace and frills and adornments on it than men’s, so men’s was more suited toward machine production,” Gresser explains.)

When it comes to home goods — aristocratic silver and silk vs. blue-collar stainless steel and polyester — companies might have likewise been more worried about competing on price for the lowerend options, since workingclass customers are more price-sensitive. So dating as far back as the 1930s and 1940s, they lobbied for the sharpest tariffs on cheap goods.

In the end, these protectionist policies proved ineffective at shielding U.S. companies from competition; garment manufacturing for both genders, as well as production for common home goods, almost entirely left the United States anyway. But the tariffs as they were crafted decades ago continue anyway, with their same class and gender biases. The U.S. tariff system is pretty broadly regressive in other ways, too, given that lower-income consumers spend a higher share of their budgets on products subject to import duties.

So why aren’t feminists and anti-poverty advocates up in arms? Perhaps because there’s such limited understanding of how the U.S. trade system works. Like so many features of government, it is cloaked in complexity. Plus, those who usually fight for more equitable treatment might be loath to take on the political allies who push protectionism.

Maybe someday we’ll build a trade system that’s friendlier to women and the poor. Now that would be romantic.

Email: crampell@ washpost.com.

India’s tax officials searched BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday, weeks after it aired a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the U.K., the broadcaster said.

Rights groups and opposition politicians denounced the move by India’s Income Tax Department as an attempt to intimidate the media.

Britain’s publicly funded national broadcaster said it was cooperating fully with authorities and hoped “to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.” Late in the evening, the BBC said officials were still at the two offices.

“Many staff have now left the building but some have been asked to remain and are continuing to cooperate with the ongoing inquiries,” it said, adding: “Our output and journalism continues as normal.”

Indian tax authorities declined to comment.

The tax department was looking at documents related to the BBC’S business operations and its Indian arm, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, citing unidentified sources.

The Editors Guild of India denounced the move, saying it continues “a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organizations that are critical of government policies or the ruling establishment.”

Aakar Patel, chair of Amnesty International India’s Board, said the raids were “a blatant affront to freedom of expression.”

The Indian authorities are clearly trying to harass and intimidate the BBC over its critical coverage of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party,” Patel said.

The investigation is “undemocratic” and “reeks of desperation and shows that the Modi government is scared of criticism,” tweeted K.C. Venugopal, general secretary of the opposition Congress party. “We condemn these intimidation tactics in the harshest terms.”

Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesperson for Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, said the BBC should have nothing to fear if it follows Indian laws. But he added that the broadcaster’s history is “tainted” and “full of hatred” for India and called it corrupt, without offering any specifics.

The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” was broadcast in the U.K. last month, examining the prime minister’s role in 2002 anti-muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat,

store chain in the United States behind CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS), which also placed a bid for Medly’s pharmacy scripts and other assets, according to bankruptcy filings.

Pharmacist B. Douglas Hoey, CEO of the National Community Pharmacists Association, told Business Insider that drugstore chains often buy prescription files from smaller pharmacies that are going out of business.

According to the bankruptcy filings, Medly had 22 locations, all of which originally belonged to Pharmaca.

Medly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 9 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington.

The filing requested that bankruptcy petitions for Medly Health and 31 of its affiliates, including Pharmaca, be jointly administered in the petition. During a virtual hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Karen Owens gave Medly interim permission to access half of its $8 million in debtorin-possession

S&W executives, in a prepared statement, said, “We believe our agreement with Shell to establish the joint venture is transformational for S&W. By partnering with a world leader like Shell and leveraging our seed, processing and technological capabilities within Camelina, we believe we have an opportunity to be at the forefront of the evolution taking place to produce sustainable low carbon energy solutions.

where he was chief minister at the time. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.

Modi has denied allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed, and the Supreme Court said it found no evidence to prosecute him. Last year, the court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi’s exoneration.

The second portion of the two-part documentary examined “the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the BBC website.

The program drew an immediate backlash from India’s government, which invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block it from being shown in the country. Local authorities scrambled to stop screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms including Twitter and Youtube complied with government requests to remove links to the documentary.

Critics and political opponents decried the ban as an assault on press freedom. The BBC said at the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions.

financing, despite concerns expressed at the hearing from Linda Casey, a representative of the U.S. Trustee’s Office, that Medly could end up in default on that financing before the next hearing Jan. 3 if it failed to close on the sales.

Medly was forced to file for bankruptcy after it failed to get a $100 million loan for which it applied last summer.

In the court filing, the company said that made it impossible to buy the drugs it needed to fill prescriptions. As a result, it said, more than 20 of its stores closed.

This article was first published by Bizwest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2023 Bizwest Media LLC. You can view the original here: Medly closure leaves Boulder landlord, employees in lurch

This joint venture adds a new center of value for S&W and has the ability to enhance the financial outlook for the company going forward.”

This article was first published by Bizwest, an independent news organization, and is published under a license agreement. © 2023 Bizwest Media LLC. You can view the original here: S&W Seed grows sales, trims loss