On Equal Pay Day, NOW Wants Women to "Get Even"

[barb162]

On Equal Pay Day, NOW Wants Women to "Get Even"

April 25, 2006

Today, April 25, is Equal Pay Day—the day when women's average earnings finally catch up with the amount men earned on average in the previous calendar year alone. At our founding in 1966, the National Organization for Women identified the wage gap and its negative impact on women. Forty years later, the gap remains wide and progress has slowed to a crawl. Now, women working full-time, year-round, are paid only about three-quarters as much as men, and African-American women and Latinas receive even less.

Women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work, let alone equal pay for work of equal value. According to data from the Department of Labor, women are paid less than men in every occupation for which sufficient information is available—more than 300 job classifications. This disparity not only affects women's day-to-day spending power; it also affects their retirement by penalizing them through gaps in social security and pensions. In spite of the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the pay gap remains, having closed by an average of less than half a penny per year since the act was passed.

That is why NOW proudly joins with the WAGE (Women Are Getting Even) Project and other women's rights allies in launching WAGE Clubs -- an exciting new nationwide grassroots movement forged to help grow women's wages. WAGE clubs will provide women with a forum where they can discuss wage discrimination and strategize about how to right this wrong.

If women were paid as much as men who work the same number of hours, have the same education and union status, are the same age, and live in the same region of the country, then women's annual income would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. Working families would gain an astounding $200 billion in family income annually.

http://www.now.org/press/04-06/04-25.html

(40 years, people; should have had the ERA a long time ago )

[FloridaPat]

1. Easy way to make things equal for women - we get a 25% discount

on EVERYTHING! Or whatever the wage difference is.

[barb162]

2. hmmmmmmmm

Can you imagine. It would be so much easier to pay women equally

[LisaLynne]

3. This is such an important issue.

Money, in our culture, really does determine to a great extent our quality of life as far as housing, the trips we can take, the food we eat, etc. Not to mention the "woman tax" or whatever they used to call the fact that women's haircuts, clothes, etc generally cost more than men and women are usually charged more for cars and repairs than men. All of that adds up and that is why women (along with the children they support) end up making up the majority of the poor.

The establishment (for lack of a better term) knows that money equals power and that is why whenever women have made strides forward in this area, the backlash is so strong. Once women have the ability to support themselves, they are able to move into other areas, like politics, where they can influence the culture as a whole and that's scares those who have the power now.

We need the ERA and we need to end this wage discrimination. I get so mad thinking about it, I'm getting a headache just typing this! :grr:

[barb162]

4. Your post, especially your last paragraph...

I know what you mean! I will get so angry too...and when is the last time the ERA was ever brought up in a national discussion, debate, a news conference, etc. It seems like ages ago. I can't really remember.