TODAY is payday for American women. And it's exactly three months late.
According to the National Committee on Pay Equality, women work 15 months for every 12 months that men work to earn the same income.
Now, we finally catch up to men's 1998 earnings. While the factors leading to this phenomenon are complex, gender discrimination remains high on the list.
When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, women were earning 59 cents for each dollar earned by men. Kennedy said the legislation was an important first step in addressing "the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job."
Slowly closing
Yet, 35 years later, the wage gap has narrowed only moderately, with women now earning 76 cents for each dollar earned by men. At this rate, the gap could take five more decades to heal. Meanwhile, as women's professional worth to society is being undervalued in Maryland and in every state unfair wages continue to burden individuals, families and taxpayers.
A 1999 study by the AFL-CIO and the Institute for Women's Policy Research deduced that if current wage patterns continue, American families will lose $200 billion income yearly, an average of $4,000 per family even after taking into account differences in education, age, location and the number of hours worked.
Over a lifetime, the dollars and cents a woman is underpaid can add up to mountains of lost wages, lost investment income, lost retirement and pension savings and a lower standard of living.
This loss is especially felt among low-income women. It is estimated that more than 40 percent of poor working women could rise above the poverty level if they got pay-equity wage increases.
Fair pay also stands to benefit all taxpayers, as the number of families and individuals on government assistance are reduced. As women and families become more self-sufficient, their capacity to save and spend is increased, which helps strengthen the economy. As wage earners work less overtime to make ends meet, they spend more time as contributors to their families and communities.
One reason for the wage gap is job segregation. Many women are employed in "pink collar" jobs where wages are low and jobs are undervalued: clerks, nurses, teachers, librarians. But why is job value affected by gender? Why, for example, are probation officers, usually men, paid more than social workers, usually women.
