I know a dude who’s 6′ 7″

I am either 6′ 2″ tall, or 6′ 3″ tall, depending on who you ask–it’s hard for me to say conclusively since I can’t actually measure myself, and reports differ. Trish is 5′ 10″. All indications are that Sarah will grow up to be at least a six footer.

So, what I read in Slate today pleased me. Here’s a bit from the beginning:

It is well-documented that short people earn less money than tall people do. To be clear, pay does not vary lock step by height. If your friend is taller than you are, then it’s nearly a coin toss whether she earns more. But if you compare two large groups of people who are similar in every respect but height, the average pay for the taller group will be higher. Each additional inch of height adds roughly 2 percent to average annual earnings, for both men and women. So, if the average heights of our hypothetical groups were 6 feet and 5 feet 7 inches, the average pay difference between them would be 10 percent.

But wait… that’s not the good part. The good part comes later (emphasis mine):

This sets up the study’s major finding. While height, on its own, bears a strong relation to pay, when adult height is included along with measures of childhood intelligence in pay analyses, it no longer does the explanatory work on its own. Height appears to matter, when intelligence is not included, because taller people are, on average, smarter.

I’m sure everyone reading this can come up with examples of extremely smart short people, and extremely dumb tall people, as with any statistical measurement… but if the statistics are going to show a preference for salary or intelligence, I’m glad I’m on the right side of it. I’m also glad I got to read this article this weekend, while Trish’s dad (who is a couple of inches taller than me, at least, and who has a whole pile of university degrees) was here.

Now I have to go pull out a Randy Newman CD to get the song out of my head, thanks to that article.