Challenge to Secure Equal Pay
for Working Families

2 February 2001 - By February 7, a challenge to secure equal pay during this legislative session will be sounded in at least 12 states - Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Virginia, Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin, West Virginia. State legislators, union leaders and grassroots advocates will sound a challenge on behalf of thousands of working families who can not achieve self-sufficiency or reach full earnng potential for reasons unfairly based on race or gender.

The Challenge to Secure Equal Pay for Working Families is co-ordinated by the Center for Policy Alternatives, a non-partisan policy and leadership center in Washington, D.C. Linda Tarr-Whelan, President of the Center for Policy Alternatives."We know that a dramatic wage gap exists and that both women and men want this resolved. It's time to deliver on this issue."

Surveys show that, on average, working families lose more than $4,000 every year because of the gender wage gap alone. According to the Census Bureau, women are paid 72 cents for every dollar earned by men, African Americans earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by whites while Latinos are paid 67 cents (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Female employment is concentrated in sales, clerical and service jobs including child care, elder care and nursing-jobs. These jobs are underpaid because they are viewed as "women's work" - even though they often require the same level of skill, effort and responsibility as traditional men's jobs. The wage gap also exists in managerial, medical and computing posts where men and women have the same job titles.

What approaches are being taken in the 12 states? Several are proposing workable and straightforward solutions. One approach -- the Equal Pay Remedies and Enforcement Act -- increases penalties for violations of current state equal pay law and also creates a statewide job evaluation study into the causes of pay inequality and identify state-specific recommendations. 2 out of 3 employees work for businesses using some form of job evaluation.

Other approaches nclude:
* Raising wages for specific sectors that are traditionally underpaid;
* Prohibiting wage discrimination for jobs of comparable worth in the public or private sectors;
* Instituting stronger tracking and reporting requirements.