Pay Equity Facts
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Buying Influence is a non-profit organization seeking to influence publicly-traded
corporations so that they make more socially responsible business decisions. We evaluate
publicly-traded corporations according to fair-pay treatment women and minorities, also
called pay equity.
Buying Influence, Inc. has compiled pay equity information, below. Dr. Maria Kunstadter,
Founder and CEO of Buying Influence, Inc. says, “On the issue of wage discrimination and pay
equity, the numbers are really quite astounding. In the workplace women earn about 74 cents
for each dollar men make, even in studies accounting for things like similar education and
experience.”
Facts and Statistics about Pay Equity
Overall, women's earnings in 2005 were 77% of men's, leaving pay equity, or wage gap,
statistically unchanged. However, wages declined for the third consecutive year for women
and the second consecutive year for men.
Based on the median earnings of full-time, year-round workers, women's earnings were
$31,858, a drop of 1.3%, and men's earnings were $41,386, a drop of 1.8%, according to
revised 2004 data about pay equity.
Pay equity for women of color continue to be lower. In 2005, the earnings for African
American women were $29,672, or 71.7% of men's earnings, and for Latinas $24,214, or 58.5%
of men's, both slight gains, while Asian American women's earnings were $36,092, or 87.2%
of men's, a slight drop from last year. (from pay-equity.org)
If working women earned the same as men (those who work the same number of hours; have the
same education, age, and union status; and live in the same region of the country), their
annual family incomes would rise by $4,000 and poverty rates would be cut in half. This
proves the pay equity issue is a poverty issue.
Pay equity imbalance between women and men cuts across a wide spectrum of occupations.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2005 the pay equity gap for female
physicians and surgeons earned 60.9% of the median weekly wages of male physicians,
and the pay equity gap for women in sales occupations earned just 63.4% of men's wages
in equivalent positions.
The Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, making it illegal for employers to pay unequal
wages to men and women who hold the same job and do the same work. At the time of the EPA's
passage, pay equity looked like this: women earned just 58 cents for every dollar earned
by men. By 2005, the pay equity gap rate had only increased to 77 cents, an improvement
of less than half a penny a year. Pay equity for minority women fare the worst.
African-American women earn just 69 cents to every dollar earned by white men, and
for Hispanic women that figure drops to merely 59 cents per dollar.
"Facts About Pay Equity," National Organization for Women, online. Excellent summary of
statistics regarding women and pay equity.
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