Today is Equal Pay Day. It originated with the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages. Equal Pay Day falls on a different day, depending on the year and the country, as it is meant to symbolize how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the gender pay gap persists; white women are typically paid 77 cents for every dollar paid to men, with African American making just 64 cents and Hispanic women making only 56 cents.
Also important to note: often when we talk about the wage gap, we say “women” earn less than men, and then when we quote numbers we are actually only talking about white women — not only do African American and Hispanic women make less, but they are often left out of the conversation altogether when we discuss the problem (as you will note in many of the articles we’ve linked to in this post — many give the number for only white women and don’t mention the other groups or the fact that they make significantly less). So while Equal Pay Day is on April 10 this year in the U.S., the specific dates (how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year) would actually be:
April 17, 2018
White women’s Equal Pay DayMay 30, 2018
Mother’s Equal Pay DayAugust 7, 2018
Black Women’s Equal Pay DaySeptember 27, 2018
Native Women’s Equal Pay DayNovember 1, 2018
Latinas’ Equal Pay Day
Learn more about Equal Pay Day:
- Equal Pay Day NCPE
- How to “Celebrate” Equal Pay Day
- People Are Wearing Red for Equal Pay Day. Here’s Why.
- Women Have Pushed for Equal Pay for Decades. It’s Sad How Little Progress We’ve Made.
- Meet the Woman Who Convinced Apple, Starbucks, and Nike to Close Their Gender Pay Gaps
- Today is Equal Pay Day, but as companies strive toward equal pay for women, wage gap remains ‘stuck’
- The Gender Pay Gap Is Costing You $1 Million (Yeah, You!)
- “The ‘Boys’ Club’ Mentality Is Still Alive”: How Millennial Women Are Combatting the Gender-Pay Gap
- The Gender Pay Gap by State: An Interactive Map
- Don’t Believe These 5 Myths About the Gender Pay Gap
It’s worth noting that this isn’t just a gender issue. There is also a pay gap that exists between white men and men of color, similar to that between different groups of women. For example, this table shows the median weekly earnings and gender earnings ratio for full-time workers, 16 years and older by race/ethnic background for 2016 and 2017.
However we look at it, it’s clear that Racial, gender wage gaps persist in U.S. despite some progress.