In the upcoming months women will surpass men and become over 50 percent of the labor force for the first time in history. The job losses due to the current recession have disproportionately targeted men, and now more families than ever before are depending on women’s incomes. But women still only earn an average of 78 cents to the male dollar, which means not only women but entire families are now negatively affected by the wage gap.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), at Monday’s CAP Action event on equal pay, pointed out that,
"This is not a woman’s issue. It’s about families and the economic situation of families. How can we say women shouldn’t be paid the same as men for the same work?"
President Barack Obama is also concerned about the issue and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law on January 29, 2009. The bill extends the statue of limitations for a woman to sue based on discriminatory pay to 180 days after each discriminatory paycheck.
But this is only the first step. To make closing the pay gap a reality the Senate must pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which gives women much more legal ground to stand on when seeking legal compensation for unfair pay.
Some argue that the pay gap is a result of the life choices a woman makes, but statistics show it’s in fact the product of discriminatory practices that start at the beginning of a woman’s career. Often this initial gap is the result of "maternal profiling," or assumptions about the choices a woman will make regarding marriage and children.
"By analyzing data from the Department of Education we found that between women and men with the same majors and going into the same fields there was already a 5-percent pay gap only one year out of college," said Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations at the American Association of University Women at the CAP Action event.
In these economic circumstances we can’t afford to let the the pay gap continue. A staggering one-third of American women live in poverty, but if we close the pay gap half of those women would rise above the poverty line, stimulating the economy and improving the situation of countless families.
Yesterday also marked Equal Pay Day, and CAP provided a primer on the wage gap complete with information on how the wage gap adds up over a woman’s career and the pieces of legislation designed to address it.
"The typical woman worker had to toil all of 2008 and through April 28, 2009 to earn the equivalent of her male counterpart’s earnings in 2008 alone. Women experience a lifetime of losses. Women who work year-round earn less than men in comparable jobs and at all educational levels. The wage gap increases over a woman’s lifetime and adds up to $434,000 over a 40-year career for the typical woman. A woman with a bachelor’s degree or higher can lose more than $713,000."
Equal pay is now an economic issue affecting all Americans. Women deserve the legal ground to demand equal pay, and so do the families they are supporting.