The Importance Of Equal Pay In The Workplace

According to Pager and Shepherd (2008), ‘Overall, then, the literature points toward consistent evidence of discrimination in access to employment, but less consistent evidence of discrimination in wages.” Levels of income vary from person to person depending on a variety of advantages such as education and experience. However, income differences also can depend on age, gender and race. There are numerous studies that show the significance of race discrimination affects wages or income.

Whatever gender, race, or religion an individual is one would assume that the higher up their position is at work, the more they would make. According to “10 Surprising Statistics on Women in the Workplace” the wage gap increases even more as women become more powerful in their job. The pay gap

Women are advancing in the workplace both in volume and in numbers of higher positions, but are still not paid equally to men. For every dollar earned by men, Caucasian women earn 59 cents,

“Imagine you 're a little girl. You 're growing up. You practice as hard as you can, with girls, with boys. You have a dream. You fight, you work, you sacrifice to get to this stage. You work as hard as anyone you know. And then you get to this stage, and you 're told you 're not the same as a boy. Almost as good, but not quite the same. Think how devastating and demoralizing that could be” Venus Williams. For years, women have worked as hard as men to get an education, get their dream job, or even get a promotion in a job they are currently at so they can earn less pay than a man and not even know it. They take on these important roles and titles as a manager or take on more jobs than they can handle to prove they are worthy as the next guy and to receive no raise or still underpaid to the guy who does not work as hard or have the same job title. However, women and men have begun to see this a problem and started to work together to make a change. Women makeup over half the workforce and are seen, if not equal, or are the breadwinner in four out of ten families (About Pay Equity & Discrimination 1). Women in the workforce should earn the same pay as men because they work hard to get an education, their race should not play into an effect, and they support a family.

When it comes to any kind of a pay gap, I refer you to Fortune.com article, Here 's What it Takes to Sue For Gender Pay Discrimination—and Win, which stated “Pay discrimination based on sex has long been illegal. Both the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit paying someone less for the same work because of gender.” The article later goes on to detail how to go about the legal process and what evidence is required in order to win your case, and what things to be wary of when pursuing legal action. So if you feel that you are being paid less than a coworker based on race, sex, orientation, or anything else that would be defined as discrimination under the law, I urge you to seek out legal counsel and bring your employer to justice for the crime they are committing.

The divide between genders has been fought over for many years, dating back to the 1800’s where families started to grow and an income increase was needed, as a result women began working alongside men in factories, but for much smaller pay. As the world started to modernize, social norms related to women started to change. Women were granted the right to vote through the nineteenth amendment and were provided access to health care and birth control. Women should be seen as equal to men and given equal opportunities.

Throughout generations of grandmother, to mother, to daughter. All women have, and are, being uppressed. This generation must be the ones to make the change, or history may just repeat itself.

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”)

The gender pay gap effects women in almost all fields of work and in all racial or ethnic

Even though men and women who work in the same work place doing the same exact job should be getting the same exact pay, also known as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, this matter is still a constant battle. For example, women earned 79 cents for every dollar that a man earns (whitehouse.gov). This statistic, referred to as the gender gap, has been reoccurring for decades and although the numbers have changed throughout the years, the gap

Equal pay is crucial for all women. Currently, no woman, no matter what race, marital status, or family status is making the same equivalency as a man. The statistics support this: women of color are paid less than white, non-hispanic men. Black women that work full time, year round typically only make 63 cents to every dollar a white man makes according to IWPR. This wage gap translates to a loss of about $21,000; black women are more likely to be in poverty than white women who have a loss of about only $7,000. On the other hand, in the most recent survey done in 2015, mothers are paid $15,000 less than fathers, implicating women get paid 71 cents to every dollar. In addition, single, never-married women in the workforce without children typically earn 76 cents for every dollar a male counterpart makes. No matter what category a women falls into, it is almost impossible to escape the gender pay gap.

Women continue to face disadvantages in the workplace in regards to not receiving equal pay as well. There are many instances where women have the same or more qualifications to do a job than their male counterparts but do not receive the same pay. This difference in pay is not only related to gender differences but also racial differences. Women employees of different racial backgrounds tend to earn less money than their white female and male counterparts. Many women of color often face discrimination when applying to jobs and are overlooked for a position despite having the qualifications to do the work. When they are hired to these occupations they are not receiving the same pay as their white female counterparts. This double bind that minority women face within the work place continues to lead to economic hardships. Regarding women in the workplace in general, due to society’s high regard for men they are often not promoted to positions of authority or receive equal pay because people assume that women are inferior workers. (Buchanan, p205-207)

Abraham Lincoln said “... all men are created equal” in the Gettysburg Address and many of us take this to true yet here in the 21 century we still allow this. Ethnicity largely influences the quality of the job you get as well as the income you will receive in the workforce. Currently African American men working full time, year round get paid an average of 75.3 percent comparable to caucasian men, according to the U.S. Current Population Survey and the National Committee on Pay Equity.The unemployment rate for African Americans is typically at about twice that of Caucasians whom also have many substantial advantages at work. They are offered a substantially larger variety of job opportunities and positions that earn more money and have more power. This form of inequality exists in both gender and race. Though the pay gap has been reduced drastically within the last few years, it still remains a very common form of inequality

It is not up for debate whether women are discriminated against in the workplace, it is evident in census data; in 2013, among full-time, year-round workers, women were paid 78 percent of what men were paid. It is said that the organizations that are pro-equal pay, including some unions, support the idea that the government should set wages for all jobs. To the contrary, the organizations that are proponents of equal pay are not for job wages being set by the government-they wish to have the discrimination taken out of pay scales from within the company. Commonly, this pay gap is attributed to the fact that women in the United States are still expected to attend to familial obligations over work.

A current political issue in the United States is unequal payment based on the sex of the one who is employed. Rick McKee uses he editorial cartoon, “Equal Pay,” to indirectly characterize our current president, and create some irony around the whole topic of inequality in paychecks. McKee intends to reach all possible viewers/voters to make the president appear to have some hypocrisy to create some irony surrounding the president and his people-pleasing executive orders. The moral points in this piece of artwork are: if someone wants others to change they should change first, one cannot blame their mistakes on someone else, and be humble. The main purposes of this satirical cartoon is to criticize the current president’s lack of knowledge of the issue of unequal pay going on even with those that work for him, and his attitude of a hypocrite to blame what he is in charge of on other people.