Equal Pay Day: What’s Behind the Gender Pay Gap?

Women always earned less than men. In the United States, a woman makes 81 cents for every dollar a man makes – and that really adds up to a 40-year career. So what’s behind the gender pay gap?

Compared to men, women make half a million dollars less. Black, Latin American, and Native American women will earn around a million dollars less.

A history of systematic sexism has made it more difficult for women to keep their jobs, get equal pay and start businesses. It wasn’t until 1963 that Congress passed a law calling for equal pay for equal work. Before 1974, banks could refuse to issue a credit card to a woman unless she brought a man with her to co-sign.

Until 1978 women could be legally discharged for pregnancy, and it was not until 1980 that the EEOC established that sexual harassment was a form of gender discrimination.

Prior to 1988, women who wanted a business loan needed a male relative’s signature. In 2017, New York became the first state to prohibit employers from filing claims for their current salary. There are still no wage bans in more than 20 states, which maintains the pay gap between men and women.

Income differences persist, in part because of the types of jobs women tend to do, particularly when they are responsible for childcare.

At this rate, it will take more than 250 years for women around the world to receive equal pay, according to the World Economic Forum.

“Our America: Women Forward” is a five-part, cross-platform documentary series that culminates in an hour-long documentary that celebrates women and tracks their historic journey of challenges and barriers to break barriers and smash glass ceilings to build a better one Country, world and future for the next generation.

The documentary series will be broadcast daily as a five-part special on all eight of its own stations in the news programs of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno from March 8th to 13th, and from March Streamed on all 32 OTV connected TV apps in 2021. The documentary series culminates in a one-hour special that will be broadcast on the weekend of March 13, 2021.