Did you know for every dollar men make, women only make seventy-eight cents (“Equal Pay for Equal Work”)? I do not believe that is fair. In fact, the wage gap is even worse for colored women. Latino women earn fifty-six cents for every dollar men earn, and African-American women earn sixty-four cents for every dollar men earn (FACT SHEET). Although many men feel they are superior to women, that doesn’t mean they necessarily are, or should receive more pay than women. If a woman and a man can complete the same exact job, then they should get paid the same amount of money. A women should not get dinged just because she is a woman. Everyone needs a fair shot in life. Just because over all the years men have been seen as the “sole providers”, does not mean they are. Women need equal pay as men for economic security, for their retirement, and because it also affects men. Even though men were paid sufficiently more than women in the 1960s, that should not be the case today because gender does not matter as long as the work is getting done.
The Paycheck Fairness Act was first introduced on April 4, 2017, by Senator Patty Murray and Representative Rosa DeLauro (“Equal Pay for Equal Work”). The Paycheck Fairness Act would update the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and get rid of any loopholes in it. With the new act, employers would have a more difficult time paying women less for the same amount of labor (“Equal Pay for Equal Work”). The new act would also require employers who break the law to fairly compensate the women who they have wronged and get rid of retaliation against employees who talk about their pay with each other (“Equal Pay for Equal Work”).
In today’s economy it is essential for a household to have two full incomes to cover expenses. A household cannot fully depend on one full paycheck. Over the years the price of things have substantially gone up. In the past men have been seen as the “sole provider” rather than the women, but nowadays that is not necessarily true. If women were paid the same as men then the both of them could provide for the family roughly the same amount. Even if women did want to stay home and look after the kids, it is just not realistic in our world these days. We would all like to think that we have the choice to work or stay at home and take care of our families. Staying at home is just not realistic. Families need two full paychecks to get by. In 1975 roughly fifty-two percent of the population had a stay-at-home parent (Dionne). Nowadays, fewer than one in three children have a stay-at-home parent (Dionne). A lot of this has to do with the fact that women are underpaid compared to men. Families can simply not afford to make ends meet with one paycheck.
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If women are not earning as much money as men, it will affect them in the long run as well. While women are working they are putting aside a certain amount of money from their paycheck into retirement. Since women are making less money than men it is going to take them more time to save up for retirement. This will also cause women to reach retirement with smaller pensions and fewer assets than men (Cheng). When women reach the age where they need to use their retirement fund, they may only have that money because their partner passed away. Currently females’ life expectancy is 4.9 years longer than males (Cheng). Seven out of ten married women today at some point will become widows (Cheng). Women will most likely have to live off of their retirement longer. Only having one source of income is difficult enough, especially if it is not as much as it should be. A study from NIRS found that women are 80% more likely than men to be impoverished at sixty-five, while women between seventy-five and seventy-nine are three times more likely than men to be living in poverty (Cheng). Another factor to take in perspective is that forty to fifty percent of marriages end in divorce (Cheng). Because of this, women will have to deal with the burden of financial fallout of divorce along with retirement payments. It’s hard enough putting away a certain amount of money that won’t even be used until years down the road, let alone adding divorce debt to the equation. With single women giving away half of their paycheck each week, they need all the money they can get. The more years women have in retirement the greater the chance they have of being more dependent on social security (Cheng). Social Security can help women, but at the same time the lifetime gap earnings between men and women can result in lower benefits for the women (Cheng).
The men in our society today are also affected by women getting underpaid. Every man has an important woman in his life, whether it be a wife, sister, niece, mother, or female friend. Men most likely care about the women in their lives, and they want the best for those women. Most men would want the woman in their life to be fairly paid for their work based on how they complete the job rather than what gender they are. Men may depend on the women’s paychecks in their lives. Two paychecks are better than one. Who wouldn’t want more money? Being able to pay all of one’s bills really cuts down the stress in an individual’s life. If a household is receiving two full paychecks, then their bills should be paid no problem. If the shoe were on the other foot, men would be fighting to get paid as much as women. Men would not want to feel inferior to women, so why would women want to feel inferior to men. How superior a person is to another should not be based off of gender. Men and women both know how much a paycheck can affect an individual’s life overall. Two full paychecks affect a numbering of things in a families’ life including their stress level, being able to put food on the table, making ends meet, and their overall happiness. Having men and women making equal pay in our world today would level out the playing field, and each relationship would have two providers rather than one sole provider.
It is clearly time for a change in our country. Men are nowhere near superior to women. Women need a fighting chance to make a life for themselves. Men no longer need to be the only “sole providers” for their families. Women work just as hard as men do. It is time we give credit where it is needed. Let’s ignore who is completing the job and focus more on if the job is being done right. If all the boxes are checked off give that person the money that they deserve. Women need as much money as they can get to survive in our world today. Men should not be the only ones with a comfortable retirement. Men need to consider the women that they are close with in life. It may affect them more than they think.Women deserve equal pay for equal work in this world. It is not the 1960s anymore, and gender should not affect how much money an individual is getting paid. It is time to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act ASAP!
