QuoteIf you’re a working woman, you probably don’t need Equal Pay Day to remind you that there is still a significant gender wage gap in this country.
We applaud the members of Congress determined to make pay inequality a thing of the past. And they need your help.
Today, Senator Barbara Mikulski (MD) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT) will re-introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act, important legislation to fight discrimination and close the wage gap. The law would make it harder for employers to hide pay discrimination, support the training of women and girls in salary negotiation, help the government collect critical wage data, and reward employers with good pay practices.
Please show your support for fair pay. Urge your members of Congress to co-sponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Consider this. Nearly four in ten mothers are primary breadwinners, bringing home the majority of their families’ earnings, and nearly two-thirds are breadwinners or co-breadwinners, bringing home at least a quarter of the families’ earnings.
In this recession, women’s earnings are more vital than ever to their families' and our country’s economic security. Yet women have had to work more than three months into this year to match the income of men in 2010.
This must change. Women and their families can’t afford this costly wage gap any longer.
Having raised 5 children on my own, and knowing how many families are single-parent households, I find this so hurtful to our children!!
The Paycheck Fairness Act
QuoteThe Senate version of the bill had the support of the Obama administration and that of Democrats in the Senate, with President Barack Obama calling the legislation "a common-sense bill that will help ensure that men and women who do equal work receive the equal pay that they and their families deserve".[4]
The American Civil Liberties Union supported S.182, citing the 2008 data from the United States Census Bureau that women earned 77 cents for each dollar earned by a man, while the corresponding ratios were 61 cents for African-American women and 52 cents for Hispanic women as compared to wages of white males.[5]
The American Association of University Women also supported the bill, citing the organization's 2007 research report, Behind the Pay Gap, which showed that women earn less than their male colleagues just one year out of college. The pay gap has widened 10 years after graduation.[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_Fairness_Act
But... What about Carrie?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250672504707048.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
QuoteThere Is No Male-Female Wage Gap
A study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men..
By CARRIE LUKAS
Tuesday is Equal Pay Dayâ€"so dubbed by the National Committee for Pay Equity, which represents feminist groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women's Organizations and others. The day falls on April 12 because, according to feminist logic, women have to work that far into a calendar year before they earn what men already earned the year before.
In years past, feminist leaders marked the occasion by rallying outside the U.S. Capitol to decry the pernicious wage gap and call for government action to address systematic discrimination against women. This year will be relatively quiet. Perhaps feminists feel awkward protesting a liberal-dominated governmentâ€"or perhaps they know that the recent economic downturn has exposed as ridiculous their claims that our economy is ruled by a sexist patriarchy.
The unemployment rate is consistently higher among men than among women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 9.3% of men over the age of 16 are currently out of work. The figure for women is 8.3%. Unemployment fell for both sexes over the past year, but labor force participation (the percentage of working age people employed) also dropped. The participation rate fell more among men (to 70.4% today from 71.4% in March 2010) than women (to 58.3% from 58.8%). That means much of the improvement in unemployment numbers comes from discouraged workersâ€"particularly male onesâ€"giving up their job searches entirely.
Men have been hit harder by this recession because they tend to work in fields like construction, manufacturing and trucking, which are disproportionately affected by bad economic conditions. Women cluster in more insulated occupations, such as teaching, health care and service industries.
Yet if you can accept that the job choices of men and women lead to different unemployment rates, then you shouldn't be surprised by other differencesâ€"like differences in average pay.
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.Feminist hand-wringing about the wage gap relies on the assumption that the differences in average earnings stem from discrimination. Thus the mantra that women make only 77% of what men earn for equal work. But even a cursory review of the data proves this assumption false.
The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more. This one fact alone accounts for more than a third of the wage gap.
Choice of occupation also plays an important role in earnings. While feminists suggest that women are coerced into lower-paying job sectors, most women know that something else is often at work. Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Simply put, many womenâ€"not all, but enough to have a big impact on the statisticsâ€"are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.
Men, by contrast, often take on jobs that involve physical labor, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is also why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They put up with these unpleasant factors so that they can earn more.
Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinksâ€"or even reversesâ€"when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women's earnings are going up compared to men's.
Should we celebrate the closing of the wage gap? Certainly it's good news that women are increasingly productive workers, but women whose husbands and sons are out of work or under-employed are likely to have a different perspective. After all, many American women wish they could work less, and that they weren't the primary earners for their families.
Few Americans see the economy as a battle between the sexes. They want opportunity to abound so that men and women can find satisfying work situations that meet their unique needs. Thatâ€"not a day dedicated to manufactured feminist grievancesâ€"would be something to celebrate.
Ms. Lukas is executive director of the Independent Women's Forum.
QuoteNo Male-Female Wage Gap? I Call Bull Sh*t...
By Andrea Uku
April 13, 2011 3:30 pm Tuesday, April 12th marked the 15th anniversary of Equal Pay Day, which the National Committee for Pay Equity first began in 1996 to recognize the pay gap between men and women. Well, here we are, 50 years after the Equal Pay Act was originally signed into law by President John F. Kennedy, and the basic premise of the act has still not been achieved.
Worse still, this past November the US Senate actually took a step backwards when they failed to approve a bill that would move the Paycheck Fairness Act forward. Also, according to census statistics from September 2010, women working full time still make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, on average.
So, you can imagine my surprise â€" which quickly turned to rage â€" when I came across a recent WSJ article, claiming that there is no male-female wage gap. The author of the article, Carrie Lukas, posits that the differences in average earnings between men and women do not stem from discrimination.
Instead, she believes that any disparity in pay has to do with the fact that men work harder and longer hours than women. According to Lukas, Equal Pay Day is really just about "manufactured feminist grievances."
Her Point:
"The Department of Labor's Time Use survey shows that full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared to 8.75 hours for full-time working men. One would expect that someone who works 9% more would also earn more."
Rebuttal:
Lukas' definition of "work" is skewed in her rationalization. She does not account for the fact that maybe the reason men spend 9% more time working in the office is because they're spending a lot less time than women working in the home.
According to the same survey, "on an average day, 20% of men did housework... compared with 51% of women." Women, on average, spent 2.6 hours on household activities, while men spent 2.0 hours.
If we could balance all of these numbers out, then we'd all be in a better place and maybe women would actually have that extra 9% more time to spend in the office.
Her Point:
"Women gravitate toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility.
Simply put, many women... are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics."
Rebuttal:
Oh, are we? It may be true that men tend to enter higher paying fields than women, but Lukas' rationalization as to why is completely unfounded.
We don't just naturally gravitate towards "flexible" jobs. But when you consider the fact that "mothers receive a 4 percent wage penalty for the first child and a 12 percent penalty for each additional child," it stands to reason that we may not be left with much of a choice.
But for the sake of arguing, let's just say that she's right â€" it still doesn't change the fact that even when a man works in the same primarily female-dominated field (i.e., teaching or nursing) as a woman, the wage gap is still very much present. For example, a full-time male registered nurse still earns an extra $2,860 per year.
It's really rare to read such a sexist article written by a fellow female. If people like her continue to teach other women to have such an anti-feminist attitude in regards to such a major issue, then we will never be able to take the appropriate steps to alleviate gender problems like this one.
No, I don't mean to go on a feminist rant here, but someone's got to stand up to the Carrie Lukas' of the world.
http://www.stylecaster.com/lifestyle/12308/no-male-female-wage-gap-i-call-bull-sht
Hey BT, I'm still looking into how the wage gap is caluculated and there does seem to be a little disagreement on how it is measured. But this is an interesting comparison just the same:
QuoteTracking the Wage Gap
In honor of equal pay day, 12 sobering figures about men, women, and work.
PHOTOS: How women's rights have paid off.
Equal pay for equal work? Don't bet on it. President Obama may have made the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act the very first act he signed into law as president, but women still earn just 77 cents on the dollar on average, when compared to men. African-American and Hispanic women earn even less. Yes, the number is an old refrain, repeated so often it has little impact. But in 2010, there's more reason for everyoneâ€"women and menâ€"to care about the persistent pay gap than ever before. Since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, women's wages have risen less than a half-penny per year, from 59 cents then to 77 cents now. Which is why, in 1996, the National Committee on Pay Equity created "Equal Pay Day," an awareness campaign and yearly marker of just how much more women must work to earn what men earned in the year past. April 20 is Equal Pay Day this year, meaning that women must work 110 days into 2010 to make what their fathers, husbands, brothers, and male colleagues earned in 2009.
It's a statistic that's faced its fair share of criticism, and Equal Pay Day is indeed a broad look at average pay among all workers, regardless of job title. (One counterargument is that men work longer hours in higher-paying fields.) But whatever the figure, a gender gap still undoubtedly existsâ€"and in the current economy, that reality should be more unnerving than ever. Women now make up half the workforce; they are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in the majority of American families. Bringing home less bacon now can hurt American families more deeply than ever before. So, in honor of Equal Pay Day, 12 sobering figures about men, women, and work.
8 months' worth of groceries
The amount a woman could buy for a family of four if she were paid the same as her male peers, according to data from the Institute for Women's Policy Research and the USDA.
58 cents
The average wage among Latina women in the United States. The number among African American women is 70 cents.
23 percent
The amount less than their male colleagues that full-time-working women who haven't had children make 10 years out of college.
$1.2 Million
The amount less, over a lifetime, that a female college graduate will earn, compared to her male peer.
$4,600
The amount less a female MBA (graduating from a top-tier school) will make than her male colleagues in her first job out of graduate school,according to a new Catalyst study.
1 in 4
The number of businesspeople worldwide who say gender parity is a priority at their companies. One in five say that their companies commit resources to parity initiatives. The result, according to consulting firm Bain & Company: "Women have yet to rise to leadership levels at the same rate and pace as their male counterparts. Women enter the workforce in large numbers, but over time steadily ‘vaporize’ from the higher echelons of organization hierarchyâ€.
$13 Trillion
The difference in total income between men ($23.4 trillion) and women ($10.5 trillion) annually, worldwide.
Wyoming
The state with the worst wage gap, at 63 cents for every $1 a male earns. Vermont has the smallest gap, at 84 cents.
3,168,000
The number of women employed as "secretaries" in 2008, still the most common job for women.
43 percent
The number of women who are employed in jobs that make a median income of $27,000.
"Patriarchal corporate culture"
The biggest barrier to female leadership, according to the findings of a new World Economic Forum report, which noted that "Leading companies are failing to fairly integrate women in the workforce."
9 percent
The amount by which the United States' GDP could increase if the gender gap were closed.
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http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/19/tracking-the-wage-gap.html
The red bolded figure is for the same jobs, male compared to female pay. They are the most easy to compare and there are no ifs buts or maybes about it.