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 $.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.

MARCH 2021 WAGE GAP BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN Wage gap between men and women BY STATE, PER DOLLAR by state, per dollar

$0.00 $0.20 $0.40

Wyoming (1) Utah (2) Louisiana (3) Oklahoma (4) Alabama (5) South Dakota (6) Idaho (7) Indiana (8) North Dakota (9) West Virginia (10) Mississippi (11) South Carolina (12) Montana (13) New Mexico (14) Michigan (15) Iowa (16) Illinois (17) Washington (18) Ohio (19) Pennsylvania (20) Arkansas (21) Texas (22) Kansas (23) Kentucky (24) Virginia (25) Colorado (26) Nebraska (27) Maine (28) Missouri (29) Oregon (30) New Jersey (31) Tennessee (32) Georgia (33) Wisconsin (34) Massachusetts (35) Minnesota (36) New Hampshire (37) Florida (38) District of Columbia (39) Delaware (40) Arizona (41) Connecticut (42) Alaska (43) Rhode Island (44) North Carolina (45) New York (46) Nevada (47) California (48) Maryland (49) Hawaii (50) Vermont (51) $0.35 $0.30 $0.28 $0.27 $0.26 $0.25 $0.25 $0.24 $0.24 $0.24 $0.23 $0.23 $0.22 $0.22 $0.22 $0.22 $0.22 $0.21 $0.21 $0.21 $0.21 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.19 $0.19 $0.19 $0.18 $0.17 $0.17 $0.17 $0.17 $0.16 $0.15 $0.15 $0.14 $0.14 $0.13 $0.12 $0.11 $0.11 $0.09 In January 2021 the Paycheck Fairness Act was re-introduced in both the U.S House and U.S. Senate; the bill includes provisions to: • Broaden the definition of “work establishment.” This provision is especially critical as more companies implement hybrid and/or remote workplaces. • Clarify the definition of “factor other than sex.” This means wage considerations for factors such as education, training or experience consistent with job requirements. • Beef up the ability of employees seeking recompense to recover damages. • Opening up who is included in class action lawsuits. • Increase the roles of the Department of Labor and EEOC in gender wage gap oversight and enforcement. • Protect employees from employer retaliation for seeking recompense, for seeking information on wage practices or for disclosing wage information to co-workers. The bill most recently passed the House (H.R. 7) in April 2021. It was read in the Senate that same month but there the tale ends. Or does it? On September 14, 2021, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that the player unions for the men’s and women’s national teams will be offered the same contract proposals.6 Furthermore, if the women’s national team wishes to negotiate a separate contract, they will be invited to sit in on the men’s negotiations to provide transparency. This victory comes after a 2016 discrimination lawsuit filed by five women’s players and a 2019 gender discrimination/unequal pay lawsuit filed by 28 members of the U.S. Women’s National Team. For the record, here’s how the women stack up:

U.S. Women’s National Team

• Four-time World Cup Champions (1991, 1999, 2015, 2019) • Current FIFA rank: 1 | Lowest FIFA rank (2017): 2 • Best FIFA rank: 1 • Four-time Olympic Gold Medalists (1996, 2004, 2008, 2012)

U.S. Men’s National Team

• 3rd Place World Cup in 1930 (best finish) • Current FIFA rank: 12 • Lowest FIFA rank (2012): 35 | Best FIFA rank (2006): 4 • 10th in group stage in 1996 (did not qualify in 2012, 2016, 2020)

All things equal? Someday. 2 By Kirsten P. Haas, Executive Director of Girls on the Run Berks

1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 650 Washington, DC 20009

1“Employment of Women in War Production”, Bulletin, July 1942, U.S. Social Security Administration 2“Women in the labor force: a databook”, BLS Reports, April 2021, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 3“The Equal Pay Act of 1963”, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/equal-pay-act-1963 4 info@NationalPartnership.org“America’s Women and the Wage Gap,” National Partnership for Women & Families, March 2021https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/econom5 202.986.2600 ic-justice/fair-pay/americas-women-and-the-wage-gap.pdf “The Pay Fairness Act”, American Bar Association, https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/priorities_policy/discrimination/the-paycheckfairness-act/ 6“U.S. Soccer Federation announces men’s and women’s national teams will be offered the same contract,” Abigail Johnson Hess, Make It, CNBC https://www.cnbc. com/2021/09/15/us-soccer-federation-to-offer-men-and-women-players-same-contract.html