Equal Pay Day: Seeking a brighter future

Graphic explaining how women earn 80 cents for every dollar a man earns

On April 10, 2018, we observe Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day symbolizes how many days into the year women have to work to make what men earned in the prior year. Every year, women are deprived of valuable economic and tangible benefits of their hard work. Equal Pay Day falls at different points in the calendar for women of color who experience a more egregious wage gap than do white women.

The federal Equal Pay Act has been on the books for more than 50 years. California has led the way in passing strong state equal pay laws, but the pay gap persists. Unfortunately, we likely will be observing Equal Pay Day until 2059 — the estimated date we can expect to close the gender pay gap.

On a bright note, yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that prior salary cannot be used to justify a wage gap between men and women. The timing of the decision could not be better as today is Equal Pay Day! While this ruling will make it easier for women to obtain fair wages, we still have a lot of work to do to speed this process. Bringing awareness to pay inequities is a critical step towards closing the gender pay gap.

Equal Pay Day was created to raise awareness about gender pay inequality.

This year we join the Equal Pay Coalition — women’s rights, civil rights, and labor rights advocates — to use this year’s Equal Pay Day to shine a light on efforts to level the playing field between employees and employers by focusing on pay transparency.

Join us, coalition partners, and the nation’s working women for an #EqualPayDay Social Media Storm, today, Tuesday, April 10 2018 at 11:00 am PT. We’ll be on Facebook and Twitter. Let’s #TalkPay!  Learn more here: Equal Pay Day 2018

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