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Oakton Outlook

The student news site of Oakton High School

Oakton Outlook

The student news site of Oakton High School

Oakton Outlook

What you need to know about the pay gap if you are a woman in the work force

Equal+pay+for+equal+work.
Equal pay for equal work.

On April 12, 2016, the nation celebrated Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day was founded by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as an event to demonstrate the pay gap between women and men. The date symbolizes how far into the year women must work in order to earn what men were paid the year before. This means for 12 months of men’s work, women must work 16 months to earn the same amount as men. On average, women are paid 79 cents to every dollar men are paid. Even though this may not seem like a lot, it adds up. In 2014, men who worked full time earned an average of $50,383. For women working full time earned only $39,621, according to CNN Money. The gap adds up to $10,762, which is a significant amount. If you are a woman and plan to work in D.C. when you grow up, you are in luck. The smallest wage gap in the country is in D.C., which is $0.10.

There are many people supporting Equal Pay Day, even men. President Barack Obama officially announced April 12, 2016, as National Equal Pay Day and declared the Sewall-Belmont House to be a new national monument in Washington, D.C., to honor women’s equality. The members of this house led the women’s equality movement and were authors of 600 pieces of legislation for equal rights for hundreds of years.

Obama has already passed lots of legislation supporting equality for women. Already looking towards the future, next month the White House will host a Summit on “The United State of Women.” The summit will create an opportunity to discuss the progress made by and for women around the world to talk about the challenges they face and how to fix them.

There are still many problems with the pay gap and many things that are needed to be fixed, however, we are a step in the right direction.

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    Fabian Gonzalez-Cortes | Sep 13, 2016 at 8:20 pm

    “Equal Pay for Equal Work” is a fantastic talking point, but there are a few things that are essential to understanding what that means. It means ignoring the basic economic principles which determine value, specifically the value of labor. The subjective value theory means exactly what the name implies, the value of any product is subjective, despite what Karl Marx or Adam Smith may have said about the Value Theory of Labor. The price of labor is set by no one but the market and by definition the price of labor- having been set by the market, is always fair with the exception of when the government interferes in the transaction. This means that there are things that the job market takes into account when setting the price of labor, least of which being gender. Equal pay for equal work, when literally interpreted, means that variables that impact anyone’s given salary like education, work experience, and seniority are thrown out of the window. No one can argue that someone straight out of college with Bachelor’s degree in any given field should be paid as much as someone with a Master’s degree simply because they have the same job title, likewise, a Master’s in geology wouldn’t get higher paying physics related job than a Bachelor’s in physics. And what of the case when a woman has more experience and education? Would she expect her salary to be lowered to that of her male co-worker, or her male co-worker to get a bump in pay because of his gender despite having less experience and education? This also applies to fields like academia. Should a biology teacher with a Bachelor’s degree be paid the same as another biology teacher with a Ph.D., more work experience, and seniority because they have the same job? I won’t get into the issue of the widely refuted premise on which this legislation is based, but it’s clear that in both practicality and rhetoric, this is an empty talking point for Republicans and Democrats alike, not an actual step towards closing the “pay/earning/wage” gap. [This does not represent the views of Oakton, the Oakton Outlook, or the Oakton Outlook Editorial Board. These views are strictly my own.]

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What you need to know about the pay gap if you are a woman in the work force