Jessica Arons on Equal Pay

What is the career wage gap and who is most affected?

The career wage gap is the representation of the difference between what men and women full-time employees earn over a 40-year period. The career wage gap is an illustration of the scope of the problem created by the gender wage gap. What we we found in our Center for American Progress Action Fund study is that the career wage gap amounts to $434,000. All women can suffer from the career wage gap. However, women with higher degrees and in the professions can lose even more from the career wage gap, while women who have less education and work in the skilled occupations may suffer a more narrow gap.

How does the wage gap affect women and their families?

The career wage gap impedes women's ability to provide basic support for their children, like child care, education, savings for higher education; and it impedes women's ability to build assets like home ownership. It also hurts men. American men work the longest hours in any industrialized society and have the least amount of leisure time, in part because they're trying to make up for their wives' lower earnings. Society also loses out on tax revenue from women's earnings, and sometimes has to provide additional safety nets for women who are not being paid a living wage. For all of these reasons, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is launching an I Am Progress campaign called Out of the Way of Fair Pay in order to pressure government and business to do more to ensure pay equity.

What can we do to ensure equal pay for women?

There are five bills that Congress can act on that will ensure greater pay equity and help women and men to balance their family and work responsibilities. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and the Fair Pay Act all would provide incentives for businesses to ensure greater pay equity and to enforce our fair pay laws. The Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for employees to establish unions, and a new study actually shows that women benefit as much or greater from union membership as they do from a college degree in terms of pay and benefits. And finally, the Healthy Families Act would provide guaranteed seven days of paid sick leave for employees to care for themselves or family members. All of these measures are necessary to ensure greater parity between women and men in the workplace and to provide women and their families greater economic security.