Equal Pay Day Event Slated April 12 in Lansing

At noon on Tuesday, April 12, 2011, members of the Michigan Equal Pay Day Coalition will recognize Equal Pay Day, a national day of recognition that demonstrates there is still a pay gap between women’s and men’s wages.
 
Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into 2011 women must work to earn what men earned in 2010. Tuesday is the day on which women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the previous week.

View a video from Michigan Women's Forum's coverage of last year's presentation.

Anyone interested is invited to attend this event, which will be held in Room 424 of the Capitol Building.
 
Bills to strengthen Michigan’s laws about pay equity are being introduced, including a new bill amending Michigan’s Payment of Wages and Fringe Benefits Act. The new bill, the Wage Transparency Act, aims to help the market work more efficiently by providing access to wage information for those in similar jobs.
 
A major barrier to bringing an equal pay claim is lack of knowledge of other employees’ pay. The Equal Pay Day coalition partners support legislation that brings women closer to receiving equal pay for equal work.
 
Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who took her equal pay claim all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, only discovered her pay was not equal to that of men who did the same work, after retirement, when a co-worker anonymously shared that pay information with her.
 
The new Michigan bill, if enacted into law, will help employees compare their wages long before they retire. It will deter employers from improper wage discrimination based on factors such as gender, race, age, and disability, while encouraging employers to pay wages based on skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions, training required, and other legal pay determination factors.
 
According to the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor statistics, women who work full time earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn. Because of the wage gap, since 1960, the real median earnings of women have fallen short by more than half a million dollars compared to men. Women of color face an even larger wage gap. 

In an economic recession with high unemployment in which more women than ever before are the sole or primary sources of household income, the wage gap is seriously undermining families’ economic security. It is time for the disparities to end.