In the United States, women have to work 14 1/2 months before they have been paid as much as a man is in 12 months, the U.S. Department of Labor reports in its statement on Equal Pay Day 2022.
The DOL report was released March 15, the day designated as Equal Pay Day because that's the date American women must work until before they have earned as much income as that paid to men the prior calendar year, according to the report. Wage inequality places an unequal burden on women and is "striking in its fundamental unfairness," according to U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh.
Walsh said gender inequality is pervasive in society and that Equal Pay Day is to "get us thinking differently about how insidious the pay disparity between men and women really is – and to get us motivated to remedy it, once and for all."
DOL reports that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the wage-disparity problem by revealing contributing factors, such as "occupational segregation," in which women are often working in occupations that pay lower wages. These occupations, often in the service industry, endured higher job losses during the pandemic than jobs that allowed employees to work from home.
The DOL report “Bearing the Cost: How Overrepresentation in Undervalued Jobs Disadvantaged Women During the Pandemic,” addresses how the pandemic and occupational segretation impacted women, especially women of color. Among its finding: "(S)egregation by industry and occupation cost Black women an estimated $39.3 billion, and Hispanic women an estimated $46.7 billion, in lower wages compared to white men in 2019."
“Occupational segregation is a long-standing driver of gender and racial inequality in the workplace," Women’s Bureau Director Wendy Chun-Hoon said in the statement, "but the COVID-19 pandemic exploded many of its outcomes, causing real economic harm to working women and their families, especially women of color."
The DOL report included recommendations for addressing the gender pay gap and occupational segregation, such as creating opportunities for women who want to enter non-traditional work; improving policies such as paid leave and childcare to support caregivers; empowering workers to form unions for collective bargaining; and mitigating harassment and discrimination at work.
Sec. Walsh stated the DOL has a long history of being a leader in investigating and combating workplace inequality will continue to address it, as the release of the DOL report shows.
“We encourage our partners and coalitions working throughout the country to use the occupation segregation data contained the department’s report to accelerate and strengthen their work," Chun-Hoon said in the statement.
