Women are the backbone of the U.S. economy, but their contributions both at work and at home have long been undervalued. The U.S. gender- and racial wage gaps are stark examples of this — a gap that despite some modest improvements has a severe impact on women’s economic security.
According to the latest data, in 2021, women working full-time, year-round earned just 84 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made, and all women working earned just 77 cents for every dollar men made.
These disparities were even greater for many women of color, who often face multiple and intersecting forms of biases. The once-in-a-generation economic investments President Joe Biden’s administration has made — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act — can help diminish these gaps and bring forward more good-paying jobs for women in fields where they been underrepresented for far too long.
The above excerpt was originally published in MarketWatch.
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