Tuesday, April 25 is Equal Pay Day

Tuesday, April 25 is Equal Pay Day. To match men's earnings for 2005, women have to work from January 2005 to April 2006—an extra four months. Equal Pay Day takes place each year on a Tuesday in April, symbolizing the point in the next week and year to which a woman must work to achieve pay equity. Her male counterpart must work five days a week for twelve months, whereas she will work seven days a week for sixteen months to earn equivalent wages.

Since its founding in 1881, the American Association of University Women has been committed to promoting equity for all women. As part of this effort, AAUW advocates for policies and programs that allow women to achieve economic security. AAUW’s 2005-07 Public Policy Program states that AAUW is committed to supporting fairness in compensation, equitable access and advancement in employment and vigorous enforcement of employment antidiscrimination statutes. AAUW believes that pay equity is a simple matter of justice and continues to support initiatives that seek to close the persistent and sizable wage gap between men and women. In 2004, the most recent year for which data is available, women continue to earn only 77 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts.

Women’s achievements in higher education are partly responsible for narrowing the wage gap in the last several decades. As more women earned college and professional degrees, women’s overall earnings increased. Unfortunately, the narrowing of the gap between men and women’s earnings is also partly caused by a decline in the real value of the wages of men without college degrees.

The AAUW Educational Foundations’ Gains in Learning, Gaps in Earnings online report presents state-by-state date via a map of the earnings ratio between college-educated women and men who work full time, year round based on data from the 2000 Census. This interactive online report reveals that women with four-year degrees typically earn 71.5 cents for every $1 that their male counterparts earn. Women earn $44,200 compared $61,800 for men—a gap of $17,600 a year.

The American public generally knows about the pay gap. Read the AAUW Educational Foundations’ Public Perceptions of the Pay Gap to learn about common perceptions of the pay gap.

Take Action! Click on the “Take Action” link in the upper right corner, or copy and paste the following URL into your Internet browser, and then follow the instructions to send a letter to the editor of your local paper: http://capwiz.com/aauw/issues/alert/?alertid=8693166&type=ME.