Women earn 77 cents to a man’s dollar

Happy Equal Pay Day. If today doesn’t feel special, for many women it isn’t. The average woman earns 77 cents for every dollar a man earns and it’s been that way for quite a while.

Put another way, a woman would have to work all of last year and until April 17 of this year to make what a man in the same job makes in one year.

“That figure has been remarkably steady all of this century,” says Michelle Leber, chair of the National Committee on Pay Equity. The group has been marking the day since 1996, pointing out the gap between men’s and women’s wages.

Leber says for many years women went into “pink collar jobs” which generally pay less. Those career fields are teaching, social work, and retail sales. She says some employers view working moms as less serious or less reliable, despite solid evidence to the contrary.

“Solid evidence” is questionable. It’s hard to find that evidence. Private employers don’t have to tell anyone what they pay their male and female workers, and most people don’t talk about what they earn.

How much of the pay gap is a perception, meaning it just feels like men make more than women? And how much of the gap, if it exists, is plain old sex discrimination?

Lilly Ledbetter says her story is clearly one of sex discrimination.

After 19 years working at Goodyear, she learned she had been underpaid all along compared to men doing the same job.

She sued and won in lower courts.

The Supreme Court ruled against her in the now-infamous Ledbetter v. Goodyear case, saying she should have complained earlier even though she didn’t know about the discrimination.

Ledbetter started with the same pay as her male co-workers, but by retirement she was earning $3,727 per month compared to 15 of the lowest paid men who earned $4,286 per month, and the higher paid guys who made $5,236 a month.

The Supreme Court did not rule on whether this was discrimination, just the statute of limitations to sue.

That led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act giving a victim 180 days to complain beginning when she learns about the discrimination. That was the first law President Obama signed.

The law, created in 2009, helps women hold accountable employers who discriminate in the pay practices based on gender.

By LINDA THOMAS

AP photo Lilly Ledbetter