Literature Review: Unequal Pay

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The literature review reveals that numerous bills have been drafted to address this issue but often it is hard to get them passed into law. The Paycheck Fairness Act, the Fair Pay Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Act are some of the bills enacted to help the Equal Pay Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act helps to remove obstacles in the Equal Pay Act to facilitate plaintiffs’ participation in class action lawsuits that challenge systemic pay discriminations. The Fair Pay Act is an additional act that directly affects the Equal Pay Act by holding employers accountable because employees will have to be paid equally for jobs that are comparable in skill, efforts, responsibility and working conditions regardless of gender. Through the Lilly Ledbetter Act, …show more content…
Not only does pay inequality affect a woman income after taxes, it also affects benefits earned and provided for similar work. The benefits of ensuring that women obtain equal pay are that it will put more money into the Social Security fund because of taxes taken out. In addition, it will ensure financial protection for women in their senior years because it will help women save more money for retirement so they don’t have to rely on social security or spousal benefits. Furthermore, women won’t be dependent on social security because of lost wages in the senior years. This could make a difference between healthcare and hunger. It would also alleviate the burden of children having to take care of the elderly parents. On a national level, if women were paid fairly, it would help decrease the national debt when you take into consideration the fact that women make up ~ ½ of the …show more content…
This trend continues even when they have the same educational background. What this shows is that educational background isn’t the only obstacle that minority women face when it comes to equal pay. One other possible explanations can be discrimination, which if used in the work place can be problematic. Even though the gender pay gap affects all women, for African American and Hispanic/Latina women, it is an even bigger obstacle that can dramatically affect the communities in which they reside. Therefore, if equal pay for equal work is to be beneficial to all, legislation must specifically highlight and make provisions that directly affect women of minority groups as well as women in general. The following table illustrates by percentage, the disparity that women face compared to men of their own race as well as Caucasian