Equal Pay Day is March 14
Level the paying field for Equal Pay Day 2023 which is on March 14th. The date marks the day into the year on which it takes for women on average to earn what men did in 2022. Women in the U.S who work full-time currently earn 83 cents for every dollar paid to men. That’s 14 months before pay is equal by gender.
Equal Pay Day is held annually on the approximate day the typical woman must work into the new year to make what the typical man made at the end of the previous year. Based on ACS Census data, the wage gap between women and men is $.80 (cents) for every dollar that men earn. The gap is far wider for women of color as compared to White, non-Hispanic men and moms as compared to dads. This gap is closing too slowly as evidenced by the 2018 wage gap between women and men — $.80 (cents).
Wear Red Today for Equal Pay Day. Red symbolizes how far women are in the red with their pay, compared to men, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), organizers of Equal Pay Day each year. Employees and supporters alike will advocate for an end to the gender wage gap today by
wearing red.
Equal Pay Day was originated by NCPE in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages. (It was originally called “National Pay Inequity Awareness Day” and changed to its current name in 1998.) Twenty plus years later, the time is now to eradicate the wage inequality.
Women still have a ways to go before reaching a level “paying” field. While we can chalk some of the minimal gains over the last five years to the pandemic, that’s a small contributing factor here. I wrote this five years ago: “2018 brings a renewed energy around the nation and the world to key social injustices. Movements as #Enough, #TimesUp and #MeToo already Socially Sparked® our lives and continue steamrolling ahead. Social Change is in the air.” Here’s to hoping the nation is ready to pick up where it left off in the beginning of the new decade of social justice and steamroll ahead. — Abbe is Socially Sparked! Tweet @sosparkednews & @asparks01
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