The Wage Gap

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Pages: 5

Buying Into The Wage Gap
One struggle many Americans face is the constant fight for equal pay in the workplace. More specifically women of all nationalities are making an effort to close the wage gap. To start minimizing the wage gap big businesses needs to make an attempt to enforce economic justice. In the United States women are only making 80% that of the average working man. This means that the average working woman would have to work 60 extra days out of the year to even catch up to her male counterpart. 77% of women and 63% of men say that this country needs to make a serious effort to give women equal pay in the workplace. But for young women the wage gap is much smaller at only 93% (“Empowering Women Since 1881.”).
Pay equity and
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Whether these women are legal citizens or immigrants they as well have to fight the wage gap. Actually, ethnic women suffer the most from the wage gap. Asian women earn 82% that of what asian men do in the United States while African American and hispanic women are earning 88% and 71% that of men of their same ethnicity. When women of ethnicity are compared to white, not hispanic males they earn 60 cents to the white man’s dollar. Now although the wage gap is very prominent among these women, it is an issue in every and all ethnic groups (“The Wage …show more content…
The only changes the nation has seen is that the gap between black and white workers has narrowed by 22 cents. Now to be fair this can be explained by the fact that lower shares of African American and Hispanic women have college educations which greatly enhancing your chances of receiving a higher paying job. Even among those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, there is an obvious gap still occurring. College-educated black and Hispanic men women about 80% of the hourly wages of college-educated white men, and college-educated black and Hispanic women earn only about 70% of the hourly wages of college-educated white men. Unfair hiring practices may play a role, Pew points out; according to Pew’s own recently released research, about 21% of black adults and 16% of Hispanics say that their race or ethnicity has caused them to be treated unfairly in hiring, pay or promotion in the past year, compared to 4% of whites. And about 40% of blacks and 20% of Hispanics say their race or ethnicity has made it harder for them to succeed in life, compared to 5% of whites (Janet Adamy). There are many numbers and statistics that prove that the wage gap in the workplace is still a prevalent issue in the United States. Even though these numbers are well known to congress and big business owners little is being done. It is everyone's responsibility to get these facts out and hold