Gender Pay Gap In America

Jack Korthas Mrs. Wilson RHE 309J 15 April 2024 I plan to publish this paper in the Wall Street Journal, a news outlet reporting on economic and business news topics. The Wall Street Journal is a media outlet that tends not to include bias in articles. The audience I want to attract is businessmen, economists, and corporate workers who see the media and can make changes regarding the pay gap. The audience is hostile because they are the ones directly enforcing the gender pay gap and believe that the gender pay gap is just due to family responsibilities and work leave. The audience tends to be educated on the issue, as most lawmakers, businessmen, and corporate workers all have experience in the workplace.

Closing the Gender Pay Gap

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These problems are leaving many people questioning whether the gender pay gap should be closed permanently. The landscape of the gender pay gap has evolved significantly, with recent releases of data such as the information from the 2023 Pew Research Center, a study that showed women earn 84 cents for every dollar men earn in 2023. This caused many opinions to be formed about the gender pay gap and how it should be handled. Released on January 3, 2023, this data marked a milestone of equal pay improvement, which had previously halted in the last decade. This data showed the public that equal pay was progressing, but changes still need to be made to allow progress to continue and also speed up. Women are affected by the gender pay gap, by earning less money than their male counterparts, creating an unequal work environment. Recognizing the nature of unequal pay and the effects that arise, such as less work ethic, more time missed from work, and occupational segregation, shows why the gender pay gap needs to be closed permanently. The gender pay gap controversy is important because many women in society are starting to accept that they are …show more content…
Government officials therefore tried to pass legislation to get rid of the gender pay gap with the Equal Pay Act and the Equal Rights Act. Despite these pieces of legislation, women’s earnings continue to lag behind men’s, a phenomenon termed the “gender wage gap”(Davidson). The gender pay gap stagnated during the early 2000s and little to no progress towards equality was made. Although women’s earnings relative to men’s have increased since the late 1970s (Blau and Kahn 2007), women’s median weekly earnings were estimated at only 81% of men’s in 2009 (U. S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010). This trend of unequal pay has existed since the Industrial Revolution, and only 80% progress has been made for equal pay for women. Gender pay inequality needs to progress towards abolishment, and it’s not just up to the government to make these changes. Furthermore, many companies around the world are owned and operated by men, and therefore most of the decisions are made by men about company policies. Although legislators are able to pass laws to enforce equal pay, it’s up to company executives and employees to recognize how they are preserving this unequal pay in the workplace. A group effort is needed to resolve the gender pay gap, and help from legislators, company executives, and workers all needs to be combined for change.

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