women deserve equal pay

For full-time, year-round workers, women are paid on average only about 77% of what men are paid; for women of color, the gap is even wider. These wage gaps stubbornly remain despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act more than 40 years ago, and a variety of legislation prohibiting employment discrimination.

Women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work, let alone equal pay for work of equal value. This disparity not only affects women's spending power; it penalizes their retirement security by creating gaps in social security and pensions.
Facts about pay equity What you can do

Facts About Pay Equity
In 2005, women's median annual earnings were only $.77 for every $1.00 earned by men. For women of color, the gap is even worse – only $.71 for African American women and $.58 for Latinas. The General Accounting Office compiled data from the Current Population Survey regarding the ten industries that employ 71 percent of U.S. women workers and 73 percent of U.S. women managers. In seven of the ten industries examined, the pay gap between full-time male and female managers widened between 1995 and 2000.

If women received the same wages as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education and union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then these women's annual income would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. Working families would gain an astounding $200 billion in family income annually. Pay equity in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) would increase wages for women by approximately 18 percent.

Fifty-five percent of all women work in female-dominated jobs (jobs in which women comprise 70 percent or more of the workforce) whereas only 8.5 percent of all men work in these occupations. However, the men working in female-dominated jobs still receive about 20 percent more than women who work in female-dominated jobs.

Women are paid less in every occupational classification for which sufficient information is available, according to the data analysis in over 300 job classifications provided by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. In 1963, the year of the Equal Pay Act's passage, full-time working women were paid 59 cents on average to the dollar received by men, while in 2005 women were paid 77 cents for every dollar received by men. In other words, for the last 42 years, the wage gap has only narrowed by less than half of a penny per year.

What You Can Do
1. Learn more about the wage gap. Here are some additional resources onpay equity:
American Association of University Women's Information on Pay Equity
Institute for Women's Policy Research: The Gender Wage Ratio: Women's and Men's Earnings Fact Sheet (PDF)
Business and Professional Women: Fact Sheet on Pay Equity
National Women's Law Center analysis of Paycheck Fairness Act (PDF)
National Committee on Pay Equity
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Earnings and Poverty Data from the 2005 American Community Survey. AFL-CIO & the Institute for Women's Policy Research, Equal Pay for Working Families: National and State Data on Pay Gap and Its Costs (1999). A New Look Through the Glass Ceiling: Where are the Women? Commissioned by Representatives John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) (2002). Posted 4/16/07