Tracking the Wage Gap

qual pay for equal work? Don't bet on it. President Obama may have made the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act the very first act he signed into law as president, but women still earn just 77 cents on the dollar on average, when compared to men. African-American and Hispanic women earn even less. Yes, the number is an old refrain, repeated so often it has little impact. But in 2010, there's more reason for everyone—women and men—to care about the persistent pay gap than ever before. Since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, women's wages have risen less than a half-penny per year, from 59 cents then to 77 cents now. Which is why, in 1996, the National Committee on Pay Equity created "Equal Pay Day," an awareness campaign and yearly marker of just how much more women must work to earn what men earned in the year past. April 20 is Equal Pay Day this year, meaning that women must work 110 days into 2010 to make what their fathers, husbands, brothers, and male colleagues earned in 2009.
It's a statistic that's faced its fair share of criticism, and Equal Pay Day is indeed a broad look at average pay among all workers, regardless of job title. (One counterargument is that men work longer hours in higher-paying fields.) But whatever the figure, a gender gap still undoubtedly exists—and in the current economy, that reality should be more unnerving than ever. Women now make up half the workforce; they are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in the majority of American families. Bringing home less bacon now can hurt American families more deeply than ever before. So, in honor of Equal Pay Day, 12 sobering figures about men, women, and work.