On April 14, 2015 Pay Equity Day, I will call to mind the death of a thirty-two-year-old woman who worked three jobs –afternoons, overnights, and weekends in three different towns. Between jobs, she often slept in her S.U.V. with the engine running. She had been warned that this was dangerous. On August 25, 2014 she was found in her S.U.V. still filled with fumes. She was dead. She had earned little more than $8.25 an hour— a minimum wage and had trouble paying for her $500 a month basement apartment. Her name was Maria. (Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times, August 2014).
This is a life story that clearly tugs on one’s emotions. Beyond emotion, however, are some cold facts. The central fact behind Maria’s story is that almost all women experience pay inequity and/or wage gap at some time, if not all times, in their lives. It is a fact that in 2013 the median earnings for women were 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. Pay Equity Day is that day on which women on average finally earn what men in the same or comparable jobs earned by the end of December of the previous year. It is a fact that “women are underrepresented in higher paying jobs that are often dominated by men and overrepresented in low-paying jobs…” It is also a fact that women comprise two-thirds of minimum wage earners. (www. nwlc.org) In short, despite advancements in women’s economic status following passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women in large numbers continue to struggle with economic insecurity and even wage discrimination.
What is to be done? On April 14th I, along with other members of AAUW-(branch), an organization whose mission is to advance equity for women and girls, will be reminding legislators that in 2015 they must pass the Paycheck Fairness (S.84/H.R. 377) and Fair Pay bills (S.169/H.R. 438) that will strengthen and update Pay Equity. These bills have been stalled in congress for far too long!
AAUW members will also be urging legislators to sponsor and /or support additional legislation needed to enable some commonsense solutions to shrink the wage gap: raising the minimum wage and the tipped minimum wage; increasing the availability of affordable and quality child care and early childhood education, removing barriers to entry to male-dominated jobs; and preventing and remediating caregiver and pregnancy discrimination.
Pay Equity Day is not a day just about women. It is also about the well-being of families and their communities. It is a day on which many voices must be heard in support of solutions. To that end, I urge you to join with me and others. Take a minute to sign a petition, send a tweet or Facebook Post. Take five minutes today to call your legislator! Take an hour to write a letter to the editor explaining why wage gap legislation must become a priority in 2015.
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