Another year, another Equal Pay Day! 2013 is just another year in which women had to work until April 9th to earn the same amount of money that men made in 2012. In other words, it takes women about 15 months to earn the same income that men make in 12 months (ridiculous, right?)!!! While to most PBG readers equal pay is an important women’s rights issue that gets our blood boiling, I have recently realized that many young women are unaware of, or at least uninformed about the severity of, the gender wage gap. This is very troubling to me since this is an issue that women should be aware of as they enter the job market. In fact, we are the next generation that will be responsible for continuing the fight against the wage gap. While Equal Pay Day 2013 has passed, this is still an important issue that everyone—especially young women—should be aware of!
According to the National Women’s Law Center, today, women who work full time only make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes! While 23 cents may not seem like a big deal to some, 23 cents adds up; every year women make $11,084 less in median earnings than men. The average full time working women will lose $443,360 over forty years of work! And these figures do not include the long term impacts on women’s Social Security and Retirement savings.
Women are born with many natural gifts! We are the cornerstone of families, the glue to relationships, we protect the arts and we see the injustice in the world. Harmony Garden builds collective community efforts that grow healthy girls to ensure the future health and wellness of our communities.
