77 cents on the dollar – does that have a familiar ring to you? You guessed it—it’s the amount that women working full time, year round typically made for every dollar that men made in 2012. It’s now been more than a decade with no progress on narrowing the wage gap. Based on the 2012 wage gap, over the course of a 40-year career a woman would lose $464,300.
77 cents on the dollar – does that have a familiar ring to you? You guessed it—it’s the amount that women working full time, year round typically made for every dollar that men made in 2012. It’s now been more than a decade with no progress on narrowing the wage gap. That means that American women have been working for over a decade without seeing the wage gap diminish. The wage gap typically cost women $11,608 in 2012. Based on the 2012 wage gap, over the course of a 40-year career a woman would lose $464,300.
The wage gap is even worse for women of color:
- In 2012, African-American women working full time, year round were typically paid only 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.
- Hispanic women working full time, year round were typically paid only 54 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.
If you’re fed up with the wage gap, you are not alone. It’s time to invest in the set of policies we need to finally achieve fair pay for women—strengthening our equal pay laws; raising the minimum wage and tipped minimum wage; ending caregiver and pregnancy discrimination; getting women into higher-paying, nontraditional jobs; making high-quality, affordable child care accessible to all; and adopting workplace policies that allow caregivers to both hold down a job and provide for their families. We look forward to the day when today’s wage gap headlines will be a distant memory.
Check back here on Thursday for the wage gap numbers for women by state from 2012.