The Gender Pay For The Workforce Ever Since The Fair Labor Standards Act Of 1938

The gender pay gap is the difference between male and female earnings averaged in percentages. This difference in pay due to gender seems like it would be an obsolete practice in the twenty-first century, but it is real and is affecting millions of women and households in the country. In 2014, women working full time in the United States were paid 79 percent on average of what men were being paid, which is a gap of approximately 21 percent. This means that in the United States, females earned 94 cents on average to every dollar earned by males. According to one study by the Department of Labor’s Chief Economist, a typical 25-year-old woman working full time would earn $5,000 less over the course of her working career than a typical 25-year old man working in the same career. The reason why this pay gap exists does expand into other factors such as education, experience, the work being performed, qualifications, age, and ethnicity which are taken into account. The studies being conducted on the pay gap has economists verifying that discrimination is the best overall explanation and factor of the difference in pay between males and females.

Gender equality is something that has been a problem through the ages. Susan B. Anthony and many others fought for the right to vote which was granted in 1920. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law stating that no employer can discriminate based on gender. The American Association of University Women published a graph on Women’s Median Annual Earnings as a Percentage of Men’s Median Annual Earnings for Full-time, Year-round Workers, 1974-2014 and it shows that in 1974, women were paid 59% of what men were paid. The graph shows the improvements over the years and that in 2014, women were paid 79% of what men were paid. The gap has not budged since 2014. The gender pay gap has improved over the years, but it will not close until new legislation passes.

Even though women had same jobs as men, they did not receive equal salaries in the 1940s’. In these times employed women have traditionally fought for higher wages and better working conditions without the support of the trade-union movement. The campaigns of female workers led to the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, which applied to the public and private sectors where men and women were engaged in the same or broadly similar work. As women have increased their participation in the labour market, their earnings have also increased. Median wage and salary income in 2010 dollars increased steadily for women in the U.S., from $7,352 in 1940 to $21,323 in 2008 (Appendix 1). In contrast, men's earnings peaked in 1970 at approximately $35.000;

An important federal employment law that all employees and employers should be aware of is the Equal Pay Act of 1963. As conversed in week nine of class discussion and video lecture, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 ends wage disparity based on sex. The main goal of this act was to ban discrimination in wages, benefits, and pensions based the gender of an employee in any place of employment. Women traditionally earned less than men for doing similar work. The United States has had a long history of knowledge of unequal pay between men and women, but it was not until around World War II that the problem arose and women started fighting for their rights on this issue. Women have tried passing several bills to help close this pay gap throughout the 1950’s, but ended up in failure.

Luckily for women, the American Women’s rights progressed tremendously since the late 1800’s, and the turning point for females was The Equal Pay Act in 1963. Women wanted more than their primary responsibilities of taking care of the home, children, and family. Although this law contributed significant changes in the development of the women in the workforce, it did come with unethical wages.

Women have made significant strides in society, proving themselves to be as capable as men in the workforce. However, while women are making equal contributions, men and women are not earning equal wages. Even though the Equal Pay Act was established in 1963, women continue to earn lower wages than men over half a century later. This inequality not only affects women as individuals but has a detrimental effect on the national economy. The gender wage gap in the United States should end because it is unjust; correcting it would have social and economic benefits for the U.S.

The gender pay gap is a problem nationwide in the United States. It is a phenomenon that affects women of all education levels, ages, and races. Although it varies in a state-by-state basis, the pay gap is prevalent in all states (Miller, 2017). The issue is also occupation-wide, meaning that nearly every occupation will have a gender gap (Miller, 2017). Statistics from The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap have shown that while an increase in education help women earn more, it does not eliminate the problem all together or close the gap (Miller, 2017). As of recent statistics, women are paid approximately 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, however, the gap is worse for women of color, especially, when compared to the salary of that of white men; African American women earn 63% of the salary that white men earn, Native American women earn 58%, and the largest gap is for Latina women, who earn only 54% (Miller, 2017).

The gender pay gap in the United States forms a slightly mixed feeling. On one hand, after years of opposition to the earnings of women compared to men. There has been a large increase in women's earnings since the 1970s. The gender pay gap in the United States is measured through the female to male average yearly earnings for a full-time, year-round worker. Previously, a woman earned 77 cents for every dollar that a male gets. Since 1980, the gap has narrowed by 16.8 cents, improving from 60.2 cents to 77 cents, as stated by the Institute for Women’s Policy. The current pay gap between female and male is 82 cent for every one dollar. This growth is significant because it opposes the relative stability of the earlier incomes of a woman in the

Unequal pay is something that has been an issue in America for a very long time. Gender has been one of the main culprits that played a factor in the wage gap between men and women, but race may have a role. The wage gap is expressed as a percentage (e.g., in 2013, women earned 78.3% as much as men aged 16 and over) and is calculated by dividing the median annual earnings for women by the median annual earnings for men. (“The Wage Gap”)

Equality has been a topic of major discussion in the last decade. Equality, which definition consists of the state of being equal or the same, has not had a major impact on gender pay. Men are known to make more money than women simply based on gender. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was supported by President John F. Kennedy to cease the gender pay gap and allow women equal rights in wages as men. Although, it has been fifty four years since The Equal Pay Act of 1963 went into effect, it seems as if the idea for equal pay for women is still not only a topic for debate, but also an issue for women that needs to be resolved.

Many people in the United States are not aware that women still earn considerably less than men or that equal pay is an issue for everyone in this country. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed by John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963 and stated that men and women should be given equal pay for equal work. Although people acknowledge it as an important act, but no one enforces it. People of the working society are face discrimination by race, religion, and gender.

Throughout history, discrimination of all forms has been a constant issue. These forms of discrimination include race, gender, religion, beliefs, appearance or anything else that make a person different from the next person. One major discrimination issue that is constantly being dealt with in the world takes place in the work place, equal pay. Women, who work equally hard and are equally trained and qualified as men, are not paid equally to men. This has been an ongoing problem for decades. Studies have proven that African-American women and Latina women make less than 64 cents to every dollar of their male counterparts. The Equal Pay Act of 1963, which became a law in 1963, requires that men and women who do the same job in the same organization should receive the same pay. Many exceptions to the Equal Pay Act have been made though. Some of these exceptions include having seniority, having greater a quality or quantity of production, different factors such as paying extra compensation to overnight workers or less compensation to part-time and temporary workers, and having a better or different job.

The American economy runs as a cycle of employment and consumer spending for centuries, with profit, cost and salaries as the inputs and outputs. If the market is supplied by workers who are paid and encouraged to spend their wages in order to keep the market running, then the phenomenon of all employees paid equally for the same job should be universally understood in modern society. The working gender gap in the United States has revolutionized since the end of World War II in which the women who were originally temporarily employed in the workforce in place of drafted males were now seeking to be the rising breadwinners of the family. Through the Equal Pay Act, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963, the “prohibition of sex discrimination” in all forms of pay intends to eliminate unequal pay for the same jobs occupied by different genders (“The Equal”, n.d.).

One cannot begin the discussion of gender pay gap without defining it. Simply put, gender pay gap is the inequality between men and women wages. Gender pay gap is a constant international problem, in which women are paid, on average, less than that of their male counterpart. As to if gender pay gap still exist, its exactness fluctuates depending on numerous factors such as professional status, country and regional location, gender, and age. In regards to gender, in some cases, both men and women have stated that the gap does not exist. Due to various countries initiatives to shrink the wage inequality between men and women wages in the work force, the gap has narrowed, respectively, which may have helped form such opinion. However, stating

Although effort has been made to close the gender wage gap currently women continue to earn less than their male counterparts do. The gender wage gap can be defined as the difference in wages earned by men and women in the workplace. The gender wage gap can be calculated in one of three methods including comparing annual earning by gender for full-time and part-time employment, comparing the annual earnings of full-time employment, and comparing hourly compensation by gender for part-time employment. (Rodas, S. n.d.) Depending on the method used to calculate the wage gap a women in Ontario would have to work and additional 14 years to earn the same amount of money as a man earns by 65. Contrary to popular belief the gender wage gap has no boundaries and varies greatly, Slovenia having the smallest gap at 3.2% and Bosnia having the largest gap at 46%. (Stahl, A. 2017) Even though the wage gap is targeted towards women it does not affect women equally, those who are part of a visible minority, are significantly younger, or older, all experience a greater gap in compensation.