Feminism and Diversity

Imagine you work an entry-level job alongside someone who has less experience than you but still makes more money. Maybe you become a supervisor, yet still take home less pay than the employees you manage. Years go by and you look back on a lifetime of work and realize you lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings.

This is real life for women working in a country with a gender pay gap alive and well. The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau illustrate how that gap affects women, who are the primary source of income for 40 percent of American families.

The Big Number
First, there’s the benchmark. In 2013, the typical woman working full time, year-round in the United States earned 78 percent of men’s earnings. That number rose a lousy 1 percent since 2012 — a change that is not significantly different.