Women Aren’t Getting Paid Their Fair Share

And corporations should be held accountable for that

Credit: Gary Friedman/Getty Images

Let’s speak this truth: Women in America are still not being treated equally, valued equally, or paid equally in this country. In workplaces across the country, women consistently find themselves undervalued and underpaid. Women on average make 80 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. And it’s worse for women of color. Black women make 61 cents on the dollar. Latinas make 53 cents on the dollar. For Native American women, it’s 58 cents. All that money adds up to more than $400,000 over the course of a woman’s career, and more than $1 million for Latinas, Native American women, and Black women.

It’s an outrage, and it has to end.

It’s not right that young women need to work more hours to pay off their student debt. It’s not right that new mothers are penalized for taking time off to care for their children. It’s not right that women retirees have less security and accumulated wealth after working their entire careers.

It’s not right that the wage gap has barely budged this entire century.

But up until now we’ve put the burden entirely on women to hold corporations accountable for pay discrimination through costly lawsuits that are increasingly difficult to prove…