EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN – STILL NOT THERE
EQUAL PAY DAY, a nationwide reminder that women are still paid less than men, is Thursday, April 8. That is the day in 1999 when women’s earnings catch up to men’s earnings for 1998. In other words, a woman has to work 16 months to earn what a man earns in 12. More than 500 groups in 50 states will hold rallies, news conferences and other events to raise awareness and push for equitable pay for women.
Here’s the story in numbers:
- A woman is paid 74 cents for every dollar to a man.
- Each week a woman is shorted, on average, $148.
- An African-American woman earns 63 cents and a Hispanic woman earns 54 cents to a white man’s dollar.
- An Asian woman earns 80 cents for every dollar.
- The wage gap persists even though women make up nearly half of the work force and have attained education at leasst equal to men’s.
- The average family loses $4,000 a year to the wage gap.
- Working families in America lose $200-billion annually.
- In Florida, women make almost 76 cents to men’s dollar, putting the state sixth-highest in the country in ranking of that ratio.
- Women’s pension benefits average less than half of men’s.
- More than 50 percent of two-earner and single-mother households would be lifted out of poverty if equal pay were a fact at the state level.
- the average college-educated, 25 year old woman will lose $523,000 due to unequal pay during her working life.
- More than half of all female workers hold jobs in sales, clerical and service positions.
- Studies show that the more an occupation is dominated by women or people of color, the less it pays.
- Women are paid the least compared with men – less than 70 cents on the dollar – in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Louisiana.Women of color in those states earn about 60 cents to the dollar.
- Female college graduates annually earn $13,788 less than male college graduates.
- A black college-educated woman annually earns less than a white high school-educated man.
- 25 years ago, women earned 59 cents to a man’s $1, meaning that she has moved toward equal pay at the rate of half-penny, or one-half of 1 percent per year.
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
Check out: Fairpay Page and AFL-CIO