Equal Pay Day

Today is Equal Pay Day. It symbolizes how far into 2015 women must work to earn what men earned in 2014. Even though the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act passed more than five decades ago, women continue to suffer the consequences of inequitable pay differentials. In fact, year-round, full-time working women earn only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. In Maryland, we're doing a little bit better at 85 cents for every dollar. Women earn less in every occupational classification for which enough data is available, including occupations dominated by women. Over a working lifetime, this wage disparity costs the average American woman and her family an estimated $700,000 to $2 million in lost wages, impacting Social Security benefits and pensions.