Wage Gap FAQ

As the Paycheck Fairness Act headed to the floor for debate and a vote earlier this week, the Washington Post's Fact Checker blog questioned the validity of the figure most often referenced (and the figure we use at NWLC) – that the typical woman working full time, year round is paid just 77 cents to her male counterpart (the 23 cent gap). We produced this FAQ in response.

1. What is the wage gap figure?

   Our blog post from September explains all the details of how we calculate the wage gap – like how earnings are defined, which workers are included in our calculations, and which Census Bureau data we use – basically, we compare how much money the typical woman and the typical man make when they work full time, year round.

2. Why do we use this figure?

   Here at NWLC, we use the 77 cent figure because it captures the effects of many elements that produce the wage gap – including discrimination, caregiving responsibilities and occupational segregation – and demonstrates just how strongly they impact the economic security of women workers.

   From a methodological standpoint, comparable figures for the 77 cents figure are also available in earlier Census Bureau data sets, allowing for a longer historical comparison and permitting us to track our progress overtime. That means that we can look back at the wage gap to 1960 and are able to discern things like the fact that the wage gap has barely budged over the last decade.

3. What happens when you look at the different causes of the wage gap? Doesn’t it shrink?

   The wage gap occurs at all education levels, after experience is taken into account, and it gets worse as women's careers progress. When researchers account for factors that affect the wage gap it shrinks – but it doesn't disappear.  In fact, even after accounting for a variety of factors like occupation, industry, and work experience, a whopping 41 percent of the wage gap remains unexplained.

   Heather Boushey, of the Center for American Progress, explained this well in her testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in 2010. Summarizing a study by labor economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, she discusses the influence of a variety of factors that influence the wage gap, like occupation, industry, work experience, and more.  However, Blau and Kahn found that when you look at all of these factors combined – a gap still remains.

4. How does the wage gap look different for women of color?

   The wage gap for women of color is wider than for women overall. In 2010, African-American women working full time, year round were paid only 62 cents, and Hispanic women only 54 cents, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. You’ll notice we make our comparisons here to white, non-Hispanic men. That’s because women of color carry a double burden of both sexism and racism – so it’s important to take those both into account when we look at their economic security.

5. What can be done to shrink the wage gap?

   Many factors contribute to the wage gap.  Here at NWLC we work on addressing many of these factors by promoting measures that would: increase the availability of adequate and affordable child care; provide training opportunities for women in non-traditional fields, and help reduce employment discrimination.