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April 12, 2016 is Equal Pay Day. It's not a holiday that gives you time off from work, but one that gives you the important opportunity to focus on the pay inequities that still exist between men and women. The date symbolizes how far into the year an average women must work to catch up with how much an average man earned in the previous year. This year women will have to work an extra 3 months and 16 days to make the same money as their male counterparts.
For anyone with daughters ... or mothers ... or sisters ... or grandmothers, the time has come to end gender pay inequities, and seriously look at its implications for today and all of our tomorrows. Whether it's paying off student debt as a young to middle age woman, raising children as a single or married mom, or retirement for those who reach that age, the money we as women aren't earning adds up.
The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. In 2015, women in the U.S. working full time still receive the equivalent of 79.6% of men's earnings. Too many employers have been allowed to turn their backs on this historic law :
No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section [section 206 of title 29 of the United States Code] shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on job.
Pay discrimination has morphed into what is known as the Gender Pay Gap. According to the National Women's Law Center, if we don’t act to change the wage gap, a woman starting out today stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of her career. The Center estimates based on today’s wage gap, women would lose $430,480 over the course of a 40-year career. For African American women, the losses are $877,480. For Hispanic or Latina women, the career losses increase to $1,007,080. The ramifications of these numbers are staggering.
And the Gender Pay Gap ages right along with us. A recent study released by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), shows that while men and women may start off their work years making close to the same money, after women reach 35 the gap begins to increase. Median earnings typically become 76-81 percent of what men are paid. Here's what will surprise many looking for solutions. The study shows that "education is not an effective pay gap solution.” At every level of academic achievement, women's median earnings are shown to be less than men's.