Equality far-fetched? This is how much gender pay gap cost US women in 6 decades

Salary equality between men and women who work full-time will not occur until 2056, the report concluded.

US Equal Pay Act has been in place for over 60 years but there are still racial and gender wage disparities in the country, a report claimed. American women have paid a price for this gender wage disparity, research by the progressive think organisation Centre for American Progress showed. The gender pay gap has cost all working women in the US a total of $61 trillion in missed income since 1967, the report said. The number is almost twice as much as the $31 trillion total outstanding debt of the US government.

A street performer dressed as the Statue of Liberty stands in Times Square. (Reuters)

The research examined the reduction in the salary gap between men and women in the US since the Equal Pay Act was enacted in 1963. Although, women who worked full-time and all year long in 2021 earned 84 cents to every dollar earned by males which is up from only 59 cents in 1963, but there is still a wide disparity.

Salary equality between men and women who work full-time will not occur until 2056, the report concluded.

What about female employees of colour?

Latinas and black women generally make 57 cents and 67 cents less than their white, non-Hispanic male colleagues, the report revealed. In 2021, full-time, year-round employees who were women generally paid $9,954 less than those who were males.

“That’s the lost wages that could have been injected into the economy in the form of consumer spending. That’s wages that women could have used in terms of investments to build up their wealth,” she added.

“Women cannot afford another 30 years of suffering the negative economic consequences of the wage gap. Policymakers must take action to finally close the gender wage gap, including by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act,” she further explained.