“Progress” on the Wage Gap? – Not So Much

“Progress” on the Wage Gap? – Not So Much

Good news – Bad news.

The good news: The U.S. Census Bureau said the gender wage gap got smaller.

The bad news: It got smaller by the smallest possible amount – 1 cent.

A penny just does not make a difference to the millions of women who struggle every day to feed their families, pay the rent/mortgage, pay off student loans, or find – and afford – quality child care. When the Equal Pay Act was signed into law in 1963, women were paid 59 cents for every dollar men were paid. Today, that figure is 80 cents. At this rate, the gender pay gap won’t close for 136 years!

Women who hold full-time, year-round jobs are now typically paid just 80 cents for every dollar paid to men who hold full-time, year-round jobs. That amounts to $10,470 in lost income every year that could go toward basic necessities. To put that figure into perspective, that is a year and half of groceries worth of lost income.

And those are white women, who are the top of the unequal pay ladder. The pay gap is much worse for women of color. It amounts to 63 cents on the dollar paid to white men for African American women, 54 cents for Latinas, and 85 cents Asian women. Those lost dollars mean months and months of working for free, just to equal the pay scale for white men in one year.

On September 15, Native American Women’s Equal Pay Day, the wages of American Indian and Alaska Native women “catch up” to the money white men took home in 2014 — taking an extra nine months, plus the whole of the previous year.

Even the youngest women – those who often have the best education and no dependants – suffer a gender wage gap. The typical “Millennial” woman (up to age 24) earns $ .91 on the man’s dollar. And that pay gap only goes up over time and as she has children.

Mothers typically are paid only 73 cents for every dollar fathers are paid — a pay gap larger than the 20-cent gap between women and men overall. And there is a Motherhood Penalty: research shows that employers are less likely to hire mothers compared with child-free women, and when employers do make an offer to a mother, they offer her a lower salary than they do other women.

Men’s wages often rise with children, yet the reverse is true for the 40 percent of households with children that include a mother who is either the sole or primary earner for her family.

There are policy solutions that could make a big difference to help end wage discrimination and adopting family friendly workplace policies, but most of these proposals are stuck in our gridlocked Congress.

The Paycheck Fairness Act is a comprehensive bill that strengthens the Equal Pay Act by taking meaningful steps to create incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay, and strengthen federal outreach and enforcement efforts. The Paycheck Fairness Act is would help ensure that all working women get equal pay for equal work.

The FAMILY Act (Family And Medical Insurance Leave Act) would help provide the support working families need to manage the demands of job and family, something that businesses and our economy need to thrive. Nationally, just 13 percent of the workforce have paid family leave through their employers, and less than 40 percent have personal medical leave through an employer-provided disability program.

The Healthy Families Act would help families balance meeting the needs of sick or injured family members and keeping their job. Without paid sick leave, at least 43 million private sector workers – 39 percent of the workforce – must make this decision every time illness strikes because they don’t have access to paid sick days.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would help prevent employers from forcing pregnant women out of the workplace and help ensure that employers provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant women who want to continue working. Pregnant workers are too often lose their jobs or are denied reasonable accommodations that would enable them to continue working and supporting their families.

Passing all of these federal proposals would have a direct and positive effect on the lives of women and their families. (Remember, if Congress won’t act, we need to change Congress.)

Here in New York State, we’ve begun to address these issues, but adopting family-friendly policies on a state-by-state or a city-by-city basis leaves out too many people. In means your economic security is product of your zip code, not your hard work.

Most American families can’t afford to wait until 2152 for the wage gap to close and our country to join the ranks of every other first world nation that recognizes that we all have a stake in the economic prosperity and security of every person and every family.

Ask the candidates for office in the elections you will be deciding this November about their stand on equal pay, on paycheck fairness, on paid family leave, and on other economic security issues before you go into the voting booth. Put your economic interests first!

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