Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics : Female high school graduates are more likely than male graduates to have taken geometry, algebra II, pre-calculus, biology, and chemistry. Females are more likely than their male classmates to participate in music or performing arts,...

Deborah L. Frett

April 17, 2012

Women who serve in the military have complete pay parity. Even in a world where women and men in uniform work, train, fight, and unfortunately some died together, equal pay remains constant. The civilian world could learn a great deal about how much better an organization can perform when pay is...

Kimberly Olson, USAF (retired)

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

I was disheartened to hear Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin recently signed a law that repealed Wisconsin’s Fair Pay Act. This commonsense piece of legislation, like the Lilly Ledbetter Act signed into law by President Obama in 2009, was designed to make it easier for victims of wage...

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

Tuesday, April 17 is Equal Pay Day, a day to mark the fact that women still only earn 77 percent for each dollar earned annually by men and 82 percent of each dollar earned weekly. A new fact sheet released today by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) shows that the gender wage gap is...

Caroline Dobuzinskis

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

As someone who considers herself to be pretty plugged in to gender issues, I have often heard the statistic about the ratio of women’s and men’s earnings, and figured I knew most of the story. The past few months I have been going merrily along pursuing job leads in preparation for graduation from...

Vanessa Harbin

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

Last week, I talked to a cashier at a Ralph’s grocery store in Orange County, California. She told me she lives with and supports her 82-year-old mother and her disabled 56-year-old sister. She represents a growing group in the United States: a working woman who is head of household and also a...

Jenya Cassidy

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

Today is not just Tax Day. It is also Equal Pay Day - the day that symbolizes how far into 2012 women must work to earn what men already earned in 2011. That’s right. Women have to work for 16.5 months to earn what men make in 12 months. Even though it is 2012 and even though the Equal Pay Act was...

Ruth Martin

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

Today is Equal Pay Day, which marks the end of the catch-up game women in the United States involuntarily play every year. But unlike most games, there is no grand prize. Instead, women receive a brutal reminder that it takes from all of 2011 until April 2012 —more than 100 days since the beginning...

Janet Murguia

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

Tuesday, April 17 is Equal Pay Day, again. Equal Pay Day 2009 was impetus for my starting this blog. That day I dropped my son at school; at my request he was wearing red – one of the ways activists observe the day. As he was filing into class, I turned to a group of mothers and noted how proud I...

Liz O'Donnell

Realistic & Fair Wages

April 17, 2012

When you look at the budget of a low-income, single woman with children, one of the first things you’ll notice is that pretty much every dollar is reserved for the most basic necessities. In Washington, DC, half of her income might go toward childcare, another third could be reserved for rent, and...