By Dina Lassow, Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center
April 20 marks Equal Pay Day, recognizing that women today still earn, on average, only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men, which has been well publicized. The selection of April 20 as Equal Pay Day highlights the meaning of this wage gap - it is the day in 2010 when the average woman's wages catch up to her male counterpart's salary from the prior year. In other words, the average woman working full-time has to work almost four months more to make the same amount as the average man. The situation is even worse for women of color when race and gender are considered together. In 2008, African American women working full-time earned only 61 percent of the wages of white, non-Hispanic men, and Hispanic women earned just 52 percent of the wages of white, non-Hispanic men.
It has been illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform substantially equal work since 1963, when President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act. The following ye
ar, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred discrimination in employment - including pay discrimination-on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, and national origin. Nevertheless, the wage gap persists.
To put it simply, better remedies are needed for sex discrimination in employment. The recently enacted Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (President Obama signed the Act in early 2009, pictured left) restored the right to sue for as long as the employee continues to receive discriminatorily low pay checks-not only within 180 days of the initial discriminatory pay decision, as the Supreme Court had held in Lilly Ledbetter's case against Goodyear Tire & Rubber. The Ledbetter Act was only the first step towards addressing pay disparities for women. The next critical step is the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in January 2009 and is pending in the Senate, would move the ball forward by strengthening protections against pay discrimination. It amends the Equal Pay Act by, among other things, removing impediments that have developed in the caselaw to proving that a woman is being paid less for substantially equal work. And it would prohibit employers from retaliating against employees for sharing salary information with their coworkers. The Paycheck Fairness Act would also improve the collection of data that would help identify discriminatory pay practices and provide funds for training programs to help women and girls learn to negotiate better compensation packages.
In this tough economy, Equal Pay Day provides a serious reminder of how much needs to be done to end pay discrimination, so that women can better support themselves and their families.