WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE
Pay Parity: All Things Equal? 2020,
Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic, was also the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ratified in August 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote, stating, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The battle to get women into the voting booth was also a harbinger of increased numbers of women working outside the home. By March 1940, a year before the U.S. entered World War II, women constituted 25% of the workforce1. 79 years later, that percentage rose to 57% in 20192. During that time, the number of working women with a college degree quadrupled hitting 45% in 2019. Women working fulltime, year-round jobs rose from 41% in 1970 to 64% in 2019. The number of married women (in two-earner households) was 44% in 1967 and jumped to 53% by 2019. Women got the vote. Women make up over half the workforce. All things equal. Right? The Equal Pay Act (EPA) of 1963 (an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1963) “…prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions.” 3 Again, all things equal, right? WRONG. According to the National Partnership for Women & Families, as of March 2021, women working full-time, year-round jobs are “paid 82 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to an annual gender pay gap of $10,157.”4 That means women are paid $.18 less than their male colleagues. While that gap varies by state (for example, the gender wage gap in Pennsylvania is closer to
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$.21), it also varies within groups of women. For instance, women of color are typically paid $.37 less and Latina women are paid $.45 less. This wage disparity means that women not only bring home less money in their regular paychecks (which equates to less money available to spend on child care, food, housing and other necessities) but it also means women have less money going into retirement savings and Social Security. It is estimated that the gender wage gap amounts to a wage loss of $956 billion annually. So, if the law says equal pay for equal work regardless of gender, why does the wage gap persist?
THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION PROPOSES FOUR DEFICIENCIES IN THE EPA5: 1. Limited remedies for compensation 2. Interpretations of what constitutes a work establishment and non-job-related reasons for unequal pay 3. Limitations on class action lawsuits 4. Limitations protecting employees from employer retaliation Additionally, many employers have policies that penalize workers from disclosing or sharing wage information making it difficult for individuals to know if they are being fairly compensated. Slowly, some progress is being made in levelling the gender pay field. The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was passed in an attempt to clear at least one of those obstacles to fair pay, re-setting the statute of limitations for which an employee may file a claim of pay discrimination.
