Equal Pay Day Reveals Progress in Reducing Pay Inequity for Women

Yesterday, March 15, was Equal Pay Day, the day women working in many industries must work into the new year to catch up with the amount men generally earn the previous year. Commemorated in March, National Women’s History Month, in recent years, (it was originally commemorated in April) Equal Pay Day was created by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages.

“Equal Pay Day is a concept intended to get us thinking differently about how insidious the pay disparity between men and women really is—and to get us motivated to remedy it, once and for all,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh.

The good news is this year’s Equal Pay Day is the earliest date in its 26-year history, signaling the gender wage gap appears to be narrowing. In 2020, the average woman working full-time, year-round earned US$0.83 for every male $1.00, up $0.01 from the year prior.

But the bad news is the shrinking of the gender wage gap reflects the U.S. pandemic reality, rather than progress. This year’s statistics are based on 2020 data, the first year to show the pandemic’s impact. A smaller wage gap reflects the women who left the workforce in droves that year—not any progress made for those who remained in it.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the pandemic exposed some of the factors that contribute to the gender pay gap. For example, it exposed the reality of occupational segregation, in which women are concentrated in certain occupations that pay lower wages. These occupations and industries experienced the greatest job losses during the pandemic.

In response, the DOL has created a report, “Bearing the Cost: How Overrepresentation in Undervalued Jobs Disadvantaged Women During the Pandemic.” The report finds that segregation by industry and occupation cost Black women an estimated $39.3 billion and Hispanic women an estimated $46.7 billion in lower wages compared to white men in 2019. 

The department is committed to addressing occupational segregation by supporting women entering male-dominated fields, raising wages and job quality especially in women-dominated jobs, and ensuring racial and gender equity in all jobs. To achieve this, the report includes a series of recommendations for action, such as:

• Creating more equitable educational and training opportunities for women to enter nontraditional fields through pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships
• Increasing access to policies that support workers with caregiving responsibilities, like paid leave and child care
• Building worker power by supporting workers’ right to organize and collectively bargain
• Addressing discrimination and harassment in workplaces.

ISSA’s Hygieia Network provides mentoring and networking opportunities, helping women advance in the cleaning industry.