Tag: pay equity
Bravo To Tubman, But U.S. Women Still Not Getting The Full $20

Bravo To Tubman, But U.S. Women Still Not Getting The Full $20

My apologies upfront to those cheering the announcement that Harriet Tubman will grace the front of the $20 bill, and that a few other women will eventually get similar treatment on other currency, but the announcement Wednesday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew merely underscores the slow pace of change in America.

The addition of the women — Tubman and other suffragists and civil rights heroines to the $10 and $5 bills — is a positive step. But it won’t count for much, not in most women’s wallets.

According to a report released in April by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), based on median annual earnings, a woman, working full time, year-round, will lose nearly $500,000 over a career, due to gender pay gaps.

That’s $10,800 less per year than a man.

Pay gaps like this aren’t going to be fixed easily, and certainly not by stamping a few women’s faces on a U.S. sawbuck. And, at the current rate of change, cites the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the gender pay gap will not close until 2059.

As a result of this inequity, women have less money in retirement, have less to reinvest into the economy and are more likely to live in poverty in old age. The economy in general loses by shorting women’s paychecks, whether we’re talking about Jennifer Lawrence not making as much as Bradley Cooper or the produce manager at your local supermarket who just found out the male butcher makes more.

The gaps are real and repeated studies show that they cannot all be explained away by career choice, level of education, women not being assertive in salary negotiations or by choosing to take time away from a career to raise a family.

Something else is to blame and its name is sexism.

Shuffling Andrew Jackson — a slave owner — to the back of the $20 bill so that Harriet Tubman — a former slave and abolitionist — can take center stage is worthy of note. It’s a monumental example of how far our history has progressed, a genial nod toward inclusion rather than exclusion.

And it only took the federal government 100 years to get there.

But more is needed. Substantive change must be made. The pay gap must close.

No woman in America is going to suddenly earn a fairer wage because Tubman’s face is on our money. Women don’t covet their dollars for the artwork on the front. They simply want to be paid fairly for the work they do.

Bravo to the federal government for acknowledging Tubman, but let’s not lose sight of the goals envisioned by all those women who will come after her (estimates are that it will take until 2030 before (all three of the) new bills are circulating). If the country is serious about righting longstanding inequities surrounding gender and commerce, let’s cut the symbolism and have a deeper discussion. Here are some ideas:

According to the JEC study, African-American women earn only 60 percent of what their white male counterparts earn and Hispanic women earn only 55 percent of white men’s earnings.

Put that on a $10 bill. Or how about putting Phillis Wheatley’s image on a bill worth only 60 percent of the one handed out with Oliver Wendell Holmes’ face on it? It’s not an idea that is likely to catch on. Best just close the pay gap.

The women who will one day have their image on U.S. currency — Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul — spent their lives working for women’s equality.

Let’s not short-change their legacies now by easing up long before the job is done.

(Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.)

(c) 2016, THE KANSAS CITY STAR DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

President To Advance Pay Equity Through Executive Orders

President To Advance Pay Equity Through Executive Orders

Advancing the fight for pay equity, President Barack Obama will sign two executive orders this week meant to close the persistent wage gap between women and men.

The first measure would prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their salaries with each other. The executive action would protect employees – usually women – who discover and expose discriminatory pay policies or wages.

The second will require the Secretary of Labor to collect data on federal contractors’ workers’ compensation, which would be organized by race and sex.

Through the two orders, the president hopes to remedy the wage discrimination that often puts women at a disadvantage in the workforce, by encouraging salary transparency by federal contractors and making sure that violations and discrimination are more easily revealed.

Both of these orders come just days before what is expected to be an unsuccessful Senate vote on legislation aimed at closing the gender pay gap.

The timing is designed to put congressional Republicans on the defensive, especially because most on the right refuse to support the latest pay equity bill being debated in Congress, The Paycheck Fairness Act.

In recent days, several conservative politicians have spoken out against the bill, citing an array of reasons why the legislation would be ineffective or counterproductive. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) fears that The Paycheck Fairness Act, meant to ensure equal pay for both genders, will actually expose men to unequal pay. Meanwhile, Texas governor Rick Perry (R) accused Democrats of debating “nonsense” by even tackling the issue.

And yet nearly all Republicans who oppose legislation similar to the orders being signed by the president maintain that they do support equal pay for men and women.

“I will vote the same I did a year ago, which is no,” said conservative senator Kelly Ayotte (NH).

Then, she added: “And I think it’s self-evident I am for women being paid the same for the same job as men.”

According to supposedly equality-backing Republicans, the current Paycheck Fairness Act is just a political ploy by Democrats. Even so, the GOP has not introduced an alternative plan.

This is where the president’s orders come in. They would, however, only pertain to federal contractors, not the general workforce.

Still, the measures represent the latest evidence that President Obama will use all available options to shape economic policy without a reticent Congress. They also promote a key issue for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, which should fire up the party’s base)—the nation’s largest labor federation, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), has already come out in support of the president’s executive orders and urged even stronger action.

With Tuesday, April 8 marking Equal Pay Day, The Hill reports that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will launch its own media campaign to bring attention to the issue of wage inequality among the genders. Specifically, the “GOP Pay Gap” campaign will target the GOP’s “longstanding baseless opposition to common-sense measures that would end gender-based pay discrimination,” says DSCC spokeswoman Regan Page. The DSCC will be further backed by the Democratic National Committee, which is also planning an ad campaign in support of pay equity.

Beyond the issue’s larger economic implications, it represents a social and political reality that Republicans have failed to address. The Republican Party’s lack of uniformity on the issue – and its lack of support for the current Paycheck Fairness Act bill in the Senate – make Republicans vulnerable to accusations that they are fighting a “war on women.” Considering that Independents and even Republican women increasingly support legislative efforts to close the gender pay gap, continued opposition could risk driving even more women away from the party.

AFP Photo/Saul Loeb

Gender Pay Takes Center Stage Among Democratic Female Candidates

Gender Pay Takes Center Stage Among Democratic Female Candidates

By Sheryl Jean, The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — If you want to start a fight, talk about pay differences between women and men.

And then throw in politics just to spice things up.

That is what’s happening in Texas and across the country as equal pay takes center stage as mid-term elections heat up.

Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wendy Davis recently rebuked her Republican rival, Attorney General Greg Abbott, for his opposition to legislation that would make it easier for workers to file a wage discrimination claim. State Sen. Davis sponsored the bill last year, but it was vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry.

Davis is one of several Democratic women candidates nationally hoping to mobilize female voters, who are a critical voting bloc. Candidates — from Maryland gubernatorial hopeful Heather Mizeur to North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan — have voiced their commitment to fight for issues important to women, including equal pay, health care and domestic violence.

The numbers show that women working full time make less than men overall. In Texas, the annual median pay for women in 2012 was $35,453, or 79 percent of men’s $44,802 median pay, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Nationally, the pay ratio of women to men was 77 percent.

Those figures are for all workers in all types of jobs and exclude certain factors, such as education, occupation and the number of hours worked. Studies show the wage gap narrows after considering such factors, but it does not disappear, leading many to think there’s a real problem.

The greater fear is that the gap widens over time, meaning women have less earning power and save less for retirement.

The focus on paychecks comes as more women participate in the workforce and more women are the main breadwinners here and nationally.

The question is why pay parity has not been reached yet.

“I think there’s no one answer, which I guess is why it’s a controversial subject,” said Sandra Black, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied gender pay issues.

“Some people say the pay gap is not real,” said Catherine Hill, vice president of research for the American Association of University Women. “The pay gap is real; it’s just explained in different ways.”

Part of the pay gap can be explained by choices women make: Women are more likely to leave the workforce or work part time to become mothers and primary caregivers, ending up with less work experience.

Reports show the pay gap starts early and widens over time. Women working full time earned 82 percent of what men did just one year after graduating from college, according to a 2012 study by the American Association of University Women. Even after accounting for variations in choice of major, type of job and number of hours worked, 7 percent of the difference in women’s earnings to men’s could not be explained, Hill said.

Women also tend to work in lower-paying jobs, such as teachers, while men take higher-paying jobs in computer science and engineering.

The fact that a wage gap persists for women after accounting for differences has led some researchers to conclude that wage discrimination exists in the workplace.

“There’s evidence that discrimination exists, but that’s hard to prove,” UT’s Black said. “In most jobs, you can always say there’s something you’re not measuring.”

Bias is when two people who arguably are equally productive are paid differently, Black said. The issue is in trying to determine what is equal productivity, she said.

Some people may not be aware they have biases in the workplace, Hill said. For example, “people may think a woman is more likely to leave to have children, but men also may move for other reasons,” she said. “There’s no reason to expect that men will be better employees than women.”

Overall, women’s wages just aren’t rising fast enough to make a big enough difference.

Nationwide, women’s wages grew substantially from 1980 to 2000 due largely to increased education and more women in the workforce, while men’s wages were stagnant, according to a report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Since then, women’s wages have not continued to grow.

Photo: Alan Kotok via Flickr

Biden: ‘On Every Major Issue, The American People Agree With The Democratic Party’ [Video]

Biden: ‘On Every Major Issue, The American People Agree With The Democratic Party’ [Video]

Vice President Joe Biden slammed the GOP during his Friday morning speech to the House Democrats’ annual conference in Cambridge, Maryland, insisting that voters side with their party on every key issue.

“This is the first time in my career…where on every major issue, the American people agree with the Democratic Party,” Biden said.

“I really mean it,” he continued. “I know that sounds like hyperbole, but think about it.” The vice president then went on to cite poll numbers finding that Democrats have an advantage on the debt ceiling, raising the minimum wage, strengthening gun sale background checks, improving infrastructure, marriage equality, and pay equity. He also noted that even “with all the difficulties you’re facing now with the ACA, 55 percent of the people don’t want to see it repealed.”

Biden added that he no longer even views the GOP as a viable political movement.

“There isn’t a Republican Party. I wish there was a Republican Party,” Biden said. “I wish there was one person we could sit across the table from and make a deal and make the compromise and know when you got up from the table that the deal was done.”

Video of the vice president’s speech is below, via The Washington Post:

Photo: Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT