Four Reasons We Still Need Equal Pay Day

But it’s 2015 and the wages of U.S. women continue to lag behind those of their male counterparts of equal age, education, and professional experience. More than 50 years ago President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which prohibited discrimination “on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers.” At that time, women were paid 59 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. In the half-century that has passed, that gap has shrunk by less than 20 cents; women today make approximately 78 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. For women of color, the injustices are even starker. Black and Latina women are paid only 64 and 56 cents, respectively, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, which represents an annual loss of nearly $19,000 for Black women and $23,279 for Latinas.

Conservatives like to scoff at this day. They argue away the gender pay gap by saying the data overstates the problem, and besides, women do things like have babies and step out of the workforce to take care of them, so it makes sense they would be paid less. This (il)logic ignores the fact that many women actually don’t ever step out of the workforce to take care of their children because they simply cannot afford to do so. Indeed, 95 percent of part-time workers and low-wage workers do not have access to paid family leave, and 2-in-5 U.S. workers (nearly 40 million people) are not guaranteed a single paid sick day. The conservative reasoning also suggests that it’s perfectly acceptable for women to be routinely penalized for having and raising their families, even though research shows that paid family leave makes it more likely that women will return to work and get paid at the same wage or higher.

Not only are women today still getting paid less than their male counterparts, but that pay inequity is compounding other circumstances that are driving U.S. families into a spiral of economic insecurity. Wages have been stagnant for roughly five decades. Out-of-pocket health care costs are on the rise. Conservatives are steadfast in their attempts (many of them successful) to dismantle the social safety net, weaken labor protections, and chip away at economic supports for working families. Minimum-wage jobs—two-thirds of which are held by women, including 22 percent by women of color—do not even begin to make middle-class life affordable in this country.

The rationale for equal pay seems obvious to many, but our continued inability to even make progress toward that end—let alone achieve it—is a clear indication that we still need to make the case. So here it goes.

1. It is the right thing to do. Period.

2. Guaranteeing pay equity would improve the lives of women and families.

According to a 2014 report released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), implementing equal pay would mean an income increase for nearly 60 percent of women in the United States. Two-thirds of single mothers would get a 17 percent raise (equal to more than $6,000 a year), and the poverty rate among these families would drop from 28.7 to 15 percent. The increase in earnings would expand access to health care, food and housing security, and educational opportunities, and would have countless long-term benefits for children, who are especially vulnerable to the pernicious stresses of poverty.

3. Equal pay means a stronger economy.

The IWPR study found that if women were to receive equal pay, the U.S. economy would generate $447.6 billion in additional income—growth equal to 2.9 percent of the 2012 gross domestic product (GDP).

Pay equity would reduce poverty among working women by half and would therefore reduce the need for safety net programs that have become a lifeline for working families that cannot make ends meet. The total increase in women’s earnings as a result of pay equity would be 14 times greater than combined federal and state expenditures on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

4. It’s 2015. If not now, when?

If the gender pay gap continues to shrink at the snail’s pace of the past few decades, it won’t actually close until 2058. 2058! At this rate hover boards and moon vacations will be in vogue before women are paid an equal wage.

The increased focus on inequality and growing support for progressive economic policies like paid sick and family leave and minimum wage hikes—not to mention an election cycle in which conservatives will need to prove they aren’t actually waging a war on women—provide a window of opportunity to push for equity once and for all.

I, for one, would like this day to be obsolete before another half-century passes by.