Wage Gap Widens
Take Action to Close the Gap
![MCj04348170000[1]](http://helloladies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MCj043481700001.png "MCj04348170000[1]")
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Hello Men: you suffer too when you pay women less than you pay men for comparable work. I don’t mean to blame everything on men, but the reality is men still dominate management positions in this country. They hold 85 percent of all board seats, the majority of executive positions, and run 95 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500.
My husband knows the drill. If I bring home less than my fair share of wages, then he, a stay-at-home-father, has less money to run the household. Less money for groceries, less money for the kids, less money to pay the bills, less money to fill the gas tank, less money for his fantasy football team (it costs money to manage a team).
Why are we talking about this now? It’s not Equal Pay Day; the one day a year this subject gets any significant attention. And President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act back in January. Here’s why: The. Wage. Gap. Has. Widened. That’s right. Last year’s data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed women earning, on average .78 cents for every dollar a man earned. The new data shows women are earning .77 cents. That’s. Not. Progress.
Not only is it not progress (and not fair). It’s foolish. With traditional male dominated jobs hit hardest by the recession, there will soon be more women on the national payroll then there are men. If these women are earning less than their fair share, their families, and the economy will suffer. Groceries, gasoline, doctor’s bills – none of it becomes 23 percent less expensive when a woman is paying for it. And if families are living off less than fair wages, there is less available income to pour back into the supposed recovering economy.
It’s not just my husband who should be upset by the wage gap. We need to reverse the trend and close the gap. Click here to take action and send a message: No More Pay Discrimination on the Basis of Gender.
Read more on this topic here.
View the data here.
