Equal Pay Day illustrates the gender gap in wages

APRIL 14 marked Equal Pay Day, a holiday that highlights an ongoing issue in gender equality: the federal wage. The Tuesday date, originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity back in 1996, symbolizes how far into the year the average American woman would have to work to earn what the average American man did in the previous year.

A fall 2014 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 77 percent of women and 63 percent of men agreed that “this country needs to continue making changes to give men and women equality in the workplace.”

According to a White House study, full-time working women earn roughly 77 percent of what their male counterparts earn. This means that women have to work approximately 60 extra days, or about three months, to match what men earned by the end of the last year.

Wage estimates from the Pew Research Center, based on hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers, found that women earn 84 percent of what men earn. That would mean approximately 40 working days for women to earn what men had by the end of last year.

For young women, the wage gap is even smaller: 93 percent.

“Every week I speak with women and families in my district and from across the country who are struggling to make ends meet,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Il.) in a blog on Huffington Post Politics. “Women who are striving to get ahead in their careers, but know they are paid less than their male counterparts for no reason other than their gender.”

Today, women make 78 cents for every dollar paid to men, and for women of color the averages are far worse. African-American women are paid 64 cents (to a man’s dollar), while Latinas earn just 54 cents. Despite passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for the same amount of work, the “gender gap” in annual wages persists.

Closing this gap would cut poverty in half for working families, according to a recent study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

“Even after factoring in the kind of work people do, or qualifications such as education and experience—there is good evidence that discrimination contributes to the persistent pay disparity between men and women,” the White House said. “In other words, pay discrimination is a real and persistent problem that continues to shortchange American women and their families.”

Many lawmakers have taken action to help the economically vulnerable, including passing laws designed to ensure wage equality and the same workplace protections.

President Barack pledged to crack down on violations of equal pay laws, and established a National Equal Pay Task Force to enforce a more fair and efficient system. Last year, he also signed an executive order preventing workplace discrimination and aiming to empower workers to take control over their own pay negotiations.

Nonetheless, many agree the war on wage discrimination and the gender gap is far from over. Hence, Equal Pay Day.

Hundreds of activists and progressive groups nationwide revered the political holiday by rallying, speaking out, and posting facts and figures on social media. By having conversations that raise awareness about wage equality and change the way others think, people are lighting the fuse—which in turn, can start a fire.

According to research, women were more likely to say they had to pause their careers in order to take care of their family. These types of interruptions can have an impact on long-term earnings. About 4 in 10 mothers say they have taken a significant amount of time off from work (39 percent) or reduced their hours (42 percent) to care for a child or family member, and a quarter (27 percent) said they have quit their jobs altogether.

The American Community Survey, a comprehensive survey of occupations and gender that includes some 3.5 million American households, showed data collected over 4 years which proved men and women tend to work in very different earning positions. Although women have increased their presence in professional higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, women as a whole typically work in lower-paying occupations than men do. Nurses, secretaries, and grade school teachers are still the top three common jobs for women, such as it was in 1950.

For example, the disparities in pay between the genders are apparent in education. Women hold 70 percent of elementary and middle school teacher positions, yet men still earn more for the same role. According to data, male teachers earn a median of $1,096 a week, while women earn $956—about 87 cents to the man’s dollar.

Women are also twice as likely as men to say they had been discriminated against at work because of their gender; a difference of 18 versus 10 percent.

“If we keep up the status quo, in my home state of Illinois, it will take women until 2065—50 years from now– to close the pay gap. We must fix this,” Schakowsky said.

According to the Census Bureau, women have raised their hourly pay 1.5 cents since 2012 (from 76.5 cents to 78 cents). But the rate has been “relatively stagnant over the last decade,” said Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment at the National Women’s Law Center.

“There are several factors stalling any major improvements, like the fact that women make up the majority of the lowest payment jobs,” Graves continued. “Raising the minimum wage would make a significant difference.”

Women are also the breadwinners in about 40 percent of US households with children, according to a 2013 Pew Research Center report.

Instituting equal pay is important because “families in our country increasingly rely on women’s wages to make ends meet,” wrote Schakowsky. “When women bring home less money each day, it means they have less for the everyday needs of their families.”

For the hard-working Filipino community, equal wages is a crucial issue that affects all families and walks of life—especially those Filipina women who tirelessly work long hours with not enough pay.

“This week we celebrated Equal Pay Day to raise visibility to the continuing wage gap between women and men,” said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California. “Where I see this very clearly affecting the Filipino American community is in the homecare industry. Domestic work, including homecare, is seen as ‘women’s work’ and, therefore, devalued and paid less.  It is often considered unskilled work because it is supposed to be the “natural” work of women, when in fact the day-to-day care needs of our elder population that increasingly is plagued with chronic diseases such as dementia is intensely challenging and requires many skills.”

She also emphasized that within next year the Pilipino Workers Center, together with the California Domestic Worker Coalition, will go to Sacramento to educate lawmakers about the need to continue to recognize the hard-fought rights of domestic workers, including and especially homecare workers.

“Every eight seconds a person turns 65 in America, and our needs as a country are growing exponentially. We need to value this work and uplift the wages and conditions for the good of the workers, the consumers and the economy,” Versoza continued. “We have no excuse as one of the world’s most prosperous countries, to not overcome this gender inequality.”

(With reports from CNN, Huffington Post and Fox6Now)