Another Equal Pay Day gone by

It’s 2011 already, folks. I can’t believe we still have a day dedicated to highlight pay inequality between women and men. We should have been discussing how we can help victims of so many recent natural disasters, the national budget crisis, or even speculating about the details of the upcoming royal nuptials of William and Kate...not whether women deserve equal pay for equal work.

In yesterday’s Equal Pay Day address, US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis reported that “It actually takes a woman one year, three months, and twelve days to earn what a man earns in one year. …Today, women are paid on average, only 80 cents for every dollar paid to men. That's about 70 cents for Black women and about 60 cents for Latinas.” These facts should be distressing for any women reading this.

Last year, I blogged about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This Act would have closed loopholes in President Kennedy’s 1964 Equal Pay Act “clarify[ied] the 1964 Civil Rights Act to state that employees have six months after their last discriminatory paycheck - that is, the last time they were paid unfairly based on a discriminatory decision - to file a suit.” (Source: Women Work! Legislative Bulletin).

Basically—as Secretary Solis reported—the Act “would have prohibited employers from retaliating against women for talking about what they earn—because let's be honest, we're never going to fix the problem if we can't even talk about it."

The Act failed by two votes.

Equal Pay Day should be a call to action for all women and families. In 2011 and beyond, we simply can’t afford to be shortchanged and Secretary Solis makes the case very plain:

"For the average working woman, that 'twenty cent pay gap' is $150 less in your weekly paycheck. It's nearly $8,000 less at the end of the year. This problem doesn't just affect women— it affects families, too. It's 20 percent less food you can put on your table. It's 20 percent less to spend on your kids' education. It's 20 percent less gas in the car. The bottom line: when women start at a disadvantage, we stay at a disadvantage."

I hope you take the time to watch Secretary Solis’s full address on the US Department of Labor’s website. It’s so important that we continue to advocate for equal pay for our families and society. When we take action, we create change.

And “taking action” comes in many forms, whether it’s contacting your state representatives and senators to support equal pay policies, or participating in an Equal Pay Day flash mob like the one at Lincoln Memorial below, it’s work we can all do make Equal Pay Day history.

Kirsten Athena Clocker
Web Manager
Crittenton Women’s Union