Gender Wage Gap Essay

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With women only earning seventy-seven cent for each dollar their male counterparts make, it is no doubt that the gender wage gap in the United States is an issue. Despite the attempts to close this gap, women are still only earning less than eighty percent of what males are for performing nearly the same tasks. While the gap has gotten smaller, it has not fully closed and many questions have been brought forth about this economic inequality. With closer examination, it can be found that women earn less than men for many factors besides their gender, that there are many possible methods of further closing the gap, but however, it is not likely that this issue will become one of the past any time soon. The wage gap between men and women is nothing …show more content…

One major reason that women are making less than men is because when they have children, requiring a leave from work which often results in lost wages. In 2013, the unemployment rate for women with children under eighteen was 7.3 percent, compared to that of men with children, which was only 4.9 percent (U.S. Department of Labor, 2013). The establishment of on-site child care at workplaces as well as paid leave would be beneficial to these statistics, as women who are having children would be less likely to completely abandon their jobs and suffer from lost wages. Another possibility to lessen this issue is to raise the federal minimum wage, which currently sits at $7.25. This means that someone who is working full-time and year-round earns only around $15,000 per year. While minimum wage does vary by state, women make up a large portion of the low-wage workers while also working to be the “breadwinner” or co-breadwinner in almost two-thirds of US households (American Progress, 2014). With all of the factors that play into the gender gap, there is no guarantee that it will close any time soon. While there has been progress, if the rate of change in this gap follows the rate 1960 to 2001, women would reach pay equity with their male counterparts by the year 2059 (The Simple Truth, 2017). However, if the rate of change

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