That's $169 out of a weekly paycheck, which means she gets paid $8,788 less per year.
TweetOver 50 years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, on average women are still paid less than their male counterparts for doing comparable jobs in the U.S. — that's called the pay gap. It means that each time the average woman starts a new job, she's likely to start from a lower base salary than her male counterparts.
Just as interest compounds, so does the pay gap. As a woman moves from job to job during her career, the pay gap between her and her male colleagues is likely to become wider and wider.
Securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents and personal financial advisors suffer the largest gender pay gaps. Counselors and health practitioner support technologists and technicians have the smallest pay gaps.
Unequal pay isn't just unfair, it's illegal. But unless men and women who have the same job discuss what they're getting paid, unequal pay can go unaddressed indefinitely. At the current pace, it will take until 2058 for women and men’s earnings to reach pay parity. Let's make it happen sooner.
Women make up nearly half of the labor force and mothers are the primary or co-breadwinners in the majority of families. When women aren't paid fairly, families suffer and the American economy suffers.
Insist on equal pay for equal work in your and your loved ones' workplaces. Here's what you can do.
The Institute for Women's Policy Research's report The Status of Women in the States: 2015 Employment and Earnings (PDF, 82 pages)
Catalyst.org's research report The Myth of the Ideal Worker: Does Doing All The Right Things Really Get Women Ahead? (PDF, 21 pages)
Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and Positive Strategies for Change by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (Book, 272 pages)
Hiring manager at a multinational tech company: "I regularly hire women for 65% to 75% of what men make. I am sick of it. Here is why it happens and how you can avoid it."
"Women work fewer hours than men so it follows they earn less."
"Women choose lower-paying jobs so that's why there's a pay gap."
"Women don't negotiate their salary as aggressively as men so it's their fault there's a pay gap."
"Women choose to stay home with their kids so they have less professional experience than men and thus should earn less."
"In a lot of jobs, there's no pay gap—and sometimes, women earn more than men."
