Pay Equity: A Long Overdue Step in the Road to Equality

April 9, 2003

Statement of National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy

When I joined NOW nearly 30 years ago, I never dreamed that the wage gap would remain wide open in the year 2003. Despite passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, women are still not paid equally with men for the work they do.

This is one area that has seen little progress since the sixties; the wage gap has narrowed only 17 cents—slightly more than one half of a penny per year. In 1963, women employed full-time were paid on average only 59 cents to the dollar received by men, while in 2001 women were paid 76 cents for every dollar received by men.

The wage gap ratio is even lower for women of color. African American women are paid on average only 68 cents for every dollar that men are paid. Hispanic women are paid only 55 cents on the dollar. Women with college educations are still paid only 72 percent as much as men with the same level of education.

The wage gap particularly affects families in which women are the only income earners—single women, divorced women and widows. Wage disparity increases women's poverty, decreases women's spending power, and jeopardizes their retirement security by creating gaps in social security and pensions. This not only affects women—it reduces the income of any household with a female wage-earner.

While conservative think tanks in Washington try to explain away the wage gap, they can't deny the evidence that it continues to hinder women's economic equality. Consider this: a woman would have to work an extra three months each year in order to receive the same pay as a man. That's a loss of approximately $250,000 over the course of her career—a quarter of a million dollars that could have gone to provide for her family's future.

We've heard the rhetoric, we know the numbers. What women need now is action. Members of Congress must unite across party lines to eliminate the wage gap by passing the legislation to ensure pay equity—so our daughters won't be standing here 30 years from now.

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