Thirty years ago when the women's equal rights movement began, Americans thought the gender pay gap would end. However, women are still earning approximately 77 cents to every dollar men earn in similar jobs with similar skill sets, says the WAGE Project, with this deficit snowballing during women's work lives as it affects Social Security, bonuses, 401(k)s and other savings plans, and other compensation and benefit processes.
Among public employees in the state of Minnesota, the gender wage gap has been all but eliminated, with women earnings 97¢ for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.
When social change began seething in earnest in the 1970s, shouts of "equal pay for equal work" rose to a crescendo. Women demanded pay equity, and they began to see the gap between their salaries and those of their male counterparts diminish. By the 1990s, the shout faded to a background noise. Companies and the women who work for them saw changes, both in the way they were treated and in the way they were paid. The sound has become a whisper, and what there is of it is sometimes muffled by the sounds of CEOs and managers patting themselves on the backs, congratulating themselves on a job well done.
