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Women
New report says no equal pay in our lifetime
10 April 2003
April 19 is Equal Pay Day in the US but as a new report states, it's not a day for celebrating.
(WASHINGTON, April 9) - For Equal Pay Day, April 15, new AFL-CIO reports show the rate of progress in closing the wage gap between women and men in the last decade has been slow to dismal. At the current rate of change, working women nationwide will not have equal pay until after 2050 or when their grandchildren are members of the workforce.
April 15, Equal Pay Day, marks the day when women finally earn as much as men earned by December 31 last year. It takes women more than 15 months to earn as much as men earn in 12 months. The Census Bureau says on average, women make only 76 cents for every dollar that men earn.
The AFL-CIO released detailed reports for 17 states that show the pace of closing the hourly wage gap slowed in the 1990s after advancing in the 1980s. Lackluster wage growth for men played a role in the narrowing of the hourly wage gap in the 1990s, but progress in closing the wage gap through legislative action and other remedies has slowed considerably. The AFL-CIO reports titled "The Long and Winding Road to Equal Pay," documents a ten-year trend in the wage gap for the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Dakota and Texas.
"It is distressing to hear that working women won't achieve equal pay until my six-year-old granddaughter is near retirement age," said Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO. "Although some states have made some progress in closing the wage gap, much more must be done to achieve parity in this generation."
Nationwide, working women are fighting for pay equity in a climate of corporate greed. Companies continue to approve outrageous compensation packages for executives despite complaints of wage discrimination among their own employees.
According to recent studies, working women said that enforcement of current federal laws prohibiting wage discrimination is weak and the laws are limited. They said congressional action to strengthen and enforce equal pay laws must be a priority.
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Equal Pay Day/page 2
The Paycheck Fairness Act sponsored by Senator Majority Leader Thomas Daschle and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and the Fair Pay Act sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC) would strengthen penalties for equal pay violations and make it easier for women to win wage discrimination cases in certain situations.
So far this year, at least 20 states have introduced equal pay legislation including Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Since 1982, several states have taken action to close the wage gap including Minnesota, New Hampshire, Vermont, West Virginia, Washington, Wyoming, Maine and most recently Utah.
The AFL-CIO represents 13 million workers, including 5.5 million women, and is the largest working women's organization in the United States. For more information visit www.aflcio.org.
The AFL-CIO is a member of the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE). Founded in 1979, NCPE is the national membership coalition of over 80 organizations, including labor unions, women's and civil rights organizations, working together to achieve pay equity. The 33 member Board of Directors represents the concerns of over 20 million workers.
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