April 15 used to be thought of as Tax Deadline Day, but the
Coalition for Equal Pay has usurped it as a day to broadcast the
facts concerning the unequal pay ratio between men and women. The
Equal Pay Day theme is
“Where’s My 24 Percent?”
April 15 used to be thought of as Tax Deadline Day, but the Coalition for Equal Pay has usurped it as a day to broadcast the facts concerning the unequal pay ratio between men and women. The Equal Pay Day theme is “Where’s My 24 Percent?”
Women will stage a protest at two U.S. Post Offices in San Jose indicating their willingness to pay more taxes – if, of course, they make the same average wage as men do.
For the Equal Pay Day events, the Coalition prepared a brochure, will hold demonstrations at the Meridian Avenue Post Office and the Willow Glen Post Office in San Jose on the evening of April 15, distribute lesson plans in economics and civics and bags of cookies with a quarter cut out to area high schools, make presentations at colleges and request government resolutions and proclamations.
It has been 40 years since the federal Equal Pay Act passed, but women are still behind, earning on an average 75 cents for every $1 earned by men.
The statistics on equal pay show that some progress has been made, but it is by inches instead of leaps and bounds – in fact, gains are about half a penny per year. In 1963, women were paid 59 cents to every dollar earned by men. In 2001 median annual earnings for women were $30,446 But for men, $40,796. That’s a gap of $10,350 per year. That mounts up. During the past 38 years, the real median earnings of women have fallen short of men’s by a total of $497,319 – almost half a million dollars in a typical working woman’s career span.
Additionally, at the end of a woman’s career, the shortfall impacts retirement income. The gap runs across ethnic lines, with European American women earning 75 percent of what is earned by European American men; African American women 66 percent of what African American men earn; and Hispanic women 54 percent of what Hispanic men earn.
The wage gap holds true with educational level. The gap widens for women with college degrees. Women with master’s degrees earn less than men with bachelor’s degrees. As the Coalition points out, women do not choose lower pay. There are institutionalized cultural forces at play. One is occupational segregation. Traditionally female occupations are undervalued and underpaid. Women are 97 percent of child care workers, 76 percent of household servants, 72 percent of restaurant servers, 99 percent of secretaries – all lower paying jobs.
What is amazing and appalling is that child care workers are so poorly paid. One would think that in our society‚ priorities would be such that child care workers would be paid more than stock brokers or plumbers. They are not.
The Morgan Hill American Association of University Women board voted to lend support to coalition efforts to focus attention on the continuing problem of non-equal pay. Details: the Coalition for Equal Pay website is www.equalpay.into/
Joanne Rife is a Morgan Hill resident who writes occasionally about life in California. Contact her at ed******@*************es.com
