Why Every Day Should Be Equal Pay Day

Equal Pay Day was first created in 1996. Back then, the National Committee on Pay Equity, an all-female group of volunteers, coined the term to bring awareness to the discrepancy in pay between men and women. It was not about women receiving less pay than men for the same work, it was about women as a whole, at any given enterprise, making significantly less than their male counterparts. Since then, a Tuesday in April is chosen each year to be Equal Pay Day, because that date represents how far into the next week (or next year) most women must work to earn what men typically earn in the previous week.

It’s been 22 years, but pay inequality is a struggle many women still face in the 21st century. According to Lean In and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, American women are paid, on average, 20% less than men. The United Nations reports that globally the difference is closer to 23%. When you control for factors such as education, years of experience, industry, occupation, role, and hours worked, the pay gap still exists and actually widens for more highly educated workers (who may have more financial obligations to cover).

Source: https://leanin.org/equal-pay-data-about-the-gender-pay-gap

Women juggle an awful lot of responsibility in the different roles they play and carry a lot of weight on their shoulders. Financial security and adequate compensation feel like basic human needs desired by most working adults, regardless of gender. We all want to be able to take care of our people, feel respected and be given equal consideration for what we do in the workplace.

At the end of the day, every day should be Equal Pay Day because women who work hard and utilize their talents for the greater good deserve just as much financial security as men do. Consider this: if the gender pay gap was eliminated, the US economy would add $513 billion in new income each year. On the individual or family front, if there was pay equality, 3.1 million working women would be able to lift themselves and the families they support out of poverty.

At Ladder, being in the business of life insurance, we think a lot about what someone would need to cover in order to provide a comfortable lifestyle for the people they support. Women need and want to provide this coverage as much as men do, and ideally would want to hedge their financial risk and provide for future income that is equal to those of their male counterparts. The National Partnership for Women and Families advises that if the pay gap was eliminated, women would be able to cover:

• Fourteen more months of child care
• More than one additional year of tuition and fees for a four-year public university, or full cost of tuition and fees for a two-year community college
• Seventy-four more weeks of food for the family (1.4 years’ worth)
• Nearly seven more months of mortgage and utilities payments

So in 2018, we are partnering with Lean In and donating to support women who feel the pinch of the pay gap and are trying to support their families. We are pushing for progress because #20percentcounts. American women deserve financial equality and financial security so they can protect those they love. We want to help them get there.