Women metal workers and plastic workers make 85 cents to the dollar men earn doing the same job.

Unfair and Illegal

Over 50 years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, on average women are still paid less than their male counterparts for doing comparable jobs in the U.S. — that’s called the pay gap. It means that each time the average woman starts a new job, she’s likely to start from a lower base salary than her male counterparts.

Just as interest compounds, so does the pay gap. As a woman moves from job to job during her career, the pay gap between her and her male colleagues is likely to become wider and wider.

Securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents and personal financial advisors suffer the largest gender pay gaps. Counselors and advertising sales agents have the smallest pay gaps.

40 more years

Unequal pay isn’t just unfair, it’s illegal. But unless men and women who have the same job discuss what they’re getting paid, unequal pay can go unaddressed indefinitely. At the current pace, it will take until 2058 for women and men’s earnings to reach pay parity. Let’s make it happen sooner.

Women make up nearly half of the labor force and mothers are the primary or co-breadwinners in the majority of families. When women aren’t paid fairly, families suffer and the American economy suffers.

Narrow the Gap

Insist on equal pay for equal work in your and your loved ones’ workplaces. Here’s what you can do.

• Get educated about Equal Pay and Compensation Discrimination.
• Raise awareness about the pay gap. To start, tweet, like, share, and blog a page from this site.
• Talk to employees and employers you know about the pay gap, salary negotiation techniques, and equal pay laws.
• Change the numbers by citing the numbers. Boatloads of data just like this is freely available from the U.S. Department of Labor and beyond.

Find out more

Have the Talk

"Women work fewer hours than men so it follows they earn less."

"Women choose lower-paying jobs so that’s why there’s a pay gap."

"Women don’t negotiate their salary as aggressively as men so it’s their fault there’s a pay gap."

"Women choose to stay home with their kids so they have less professional experience than men and thus should earn less."

"In a lot of jobs, there’s no pay gap—and sometimes, women earn more than men."

See how it is in your line of work.