When the Equal Pay Act was signed into law by Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1963, women were earning an average of 59 cents on the dollar compared to men.
Women are working in nearly half of today's jobs, and their earnings are a significant portion of the household income that supports their families. However, they’re still experiencing a gap in pay compared to men's wages for similar work.
Today, women earn about 81 cents on the dollar compared to men. For African-American women, Latinas, and older women the pay gap is even more. This pay gap results in hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages.
The purpose of National Equal Pay Day is to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act, and bring attention to what needs to be done so that the act is being carried out.
For more information, see the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Equal Pay.”
It’s true that older men earn more than older women, a discriminatory relic of the past. But as reported in Time magazine: “According to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group.”
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the information about young women making 8 percent more than young men in most big cities. I’m glad things are improving.
I was talking with a friend of mine about job discrimination. During an interview, a newspaper managing editor said the newspaper had a “slot” for a woman reporter, meaning the rest of the reporting jobs were for men. He also asked me what my husband did for work.
Rita