Volume 5 │ Issue 2 │ 2020 Equal Pay Expanded and Enforced Throughout the United States Kayla LaRosa Roger Williams University Rhode Island Alpha Chapter Vol. 5(2), 2020 Title: Equal Pay Expanded and Enforced Throughout the United States DOI: 10.21081/ax0252 ISSN: 2381-800X Keywords: Gender Pay Disparity, Laws, Annual Audit This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 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Questions to the editors may be directed to [email protected] or [email protected]. Alpha Chi National College Honor Society invites to membership juniors, seniors, and graduate students from all disciplines in the top ten percent of their classes. Active on nearly 300 campuses nationwide, chapters induct approximately 11,000 students annually. Since the Society’s founding in 1922, Alpha Chi members have dedicated themselves to “making scholarship effective for good.” Alpha Chi is a member in good standing of the Association of College Honor Societies, the only national accrediting body for collegiate honor societies. A college seeking a chapter must grant baccalaureate degrees, be regionally accredited, and be a not for profit institution. 2020 2 Volume 5 │ Issue 2 │ 2020 Article Title: Equal Pay Expanded and Enforced Throughout the United States DOI: 10.21081/ax0252 ISSN: 2381-800X This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Equal Pay Expanded and Enforced Throughout the United States Kayla LaRosa Roger Williams University Rhode Island Alpha Chapter Abstract Society has made substantial efforts to ensure equal pay for equal work. However, gender pay disparity still exists in the United States. Women are paid significantly less than men. The pay disparity widens for minority women. Countries around the world have created policies that enforce equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. Women have the potential to contribute greatly to the economy and the morality of a state. The United States’ government must enact laws that protect women from pay disparity. I propose an annual audit that will examine every company and its employees. This audit would be conducted until the United States is able to establish gender equality in the workforce. Keywords: Gender Pay Disparity, Laws, Annual Audit 2020 Aletheia—The Alpha Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research 3 The 2017 earnings ratio of women’s median The public is well aware of the marked gender pay earnings compared to men’s median earnings was 80%.1 gap in the United States. While legislation, such as the This means that women make 80% of a man’s salary Equal Pay Act of 1963, achieved some progress, present with the same job functions. In states such as Louisiana, legislation is insufficient to solve the existing problem. the gender pay ratio is 69%, and in Utah, the gender In order to address the remaining gap, Congress should pay ratio is 71%.2 In various professions, the gender enact a yearly audit of every company’s salaries and pay gap is explicit. For example, the median earning for job functions. The audit would serve as an impartial male accountants is $71,320, while female accountants method to reveal any gender pay disparity that may earn $60,280.3".3 Male physicians and surgeons make exist within companies. Furthermore, Congress would an average of $243,072, while women’s earnings reserve the right to monetarily fine the company if it are $171,800, there are 274,511 women employed as does not diminish the pay gap by the following year’s physicians and surgeons.4 As stated earlier, the gender audit. Solving the gender pay gap would promote and pay disparity in 2017 was a ratio of 80%, while in 2014 encourage women in the workforce, allowing them that percentage was 78.6%.5 The United States was only tocontribute greatly to a company’s work environment able to shrink the gender pay ratio by 2.4% in three and revenue while alsopersuading younger women to years. It is hypothesized that it would take until the year strive for higher goals within the American workforce. 2059 for men and women to be equally paid.6 According to a STEM Study, “men outnumber women in technical I. BACKGROUND fields by more than four to one.”7 Additionally, according to a study from the Federal National Math and Science A. Historic Overview of Women’s Rights Initiative, “women [hold] only 23% of US jobs focused primarily on skills in science, technology, engineering The movement for gender equality has progressed and math in 2008.”8 A study published in the American steadily since its commencement; however, gender Sociological Review cites that white men are three times inequality continues to plague modern times. Gender more likely to be called for an interview than women.9 inequalities date to 1777, the year after the United State gained its independence, when the states passed a law that took away women’s right to vote.10 While women 1 spent the subsequent decades fighting to regain their vote, The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap, https:// various other inequalities emerged, inequalities such as www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the- limitations on the types of jobs women were allowed gender-pay-gap/ (last visited Feb. 28, 2019) to pursue and restrictions on women owning property. 2 See id. In 1920, the 19th amendment of the Constitution was 3 See id. ratified, granting women the right to vote. Although 4 See id. laws continued to establish and strive for equality, 5 Breaking Down the Gender Wage Gap, https://www. fundamental rights were still being disregarded. In dol.gov/wb/media/gender_wage_gap.pdf 1942, the National War Labor Board enforced a law that 6 Ariane Hegewisch, The Gender Wage Gap: 2017 required equal pay for women who directly replaced a Earnings Differences by Race and Ethnicity, (Mar. 7, job that was previously held by a man.11 However, the 2018), https://iwpr.org/publications/gender-wage-gap- first Congressional attempt to address equal pay was in 2017-race-ethnicity/ 1945 when “Congress introduced the Women’s Equal 7 Kevin Fogarty, STEM Study Shows Hiring Managers Pay Act, but it failed to pass, despite valiant efforts from Favor Men Over Women, (Mar. 28, 2014), https://www. eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321681 8 See id. 10 Timeline for Women’s Rights, http://www.digitalhisto- 9 Emily Peck, Well-Off White Men are 3 Times More ry.uh.edu/timelines/timelinetopics.cfm?tltopicid=3 (last Likely Than Woman to Get Job Interviews, (Jan. 6, visited Feb. 28, 2019) 2017), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-mother- 11 Equal Pay for Equal Work: The War Labor Board hood-penalty_n_586d69fae4b0c4be0af2c02c on Gender Inequalities, http://historymatters.gmu. edu/d/5144/, (last visited Feb. 28, 2019) 2020 Equal Pay Expanded and Enforced Throughout the United States 4 advocates to win support.” 12 It was not until 1963 when university was found unconstitutional; Justice Ruth the Equal Pay Act was legislated through Congress that Bader Ginsburg “made it clear gender equality is a women won a victory in the battle for equal pay. In 1975, constitutional right.”16 It was not until 1981 when the Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared before the Supreme first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, was appointed as a Court and argued that discrimination on the basis of Supreme Court Justice.17 In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire sex was an illegitimate argument. Duren v. Missouri & Rubber Company 2007, Ledbetter sued her employer, 1979 successfully established that excluding women Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, after learning from a jury is a violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth she was being paid less than her male counterparts.18 Amendments, a case also argued by Ruth Bader Ledbetter lost the Supreme Court case, but Congress Ginsburg.13 Kirchberg v. Feenstra 1981 successfully passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 to help “invalidated a law that gives a husband the right to control address work pay discrimination.19 Additionally, Nancy a marital property without his wife’s consent.”14,15 In Pelosi was the first female speaker of the House in 1996, the last remaining undergraduate all-male public 16 Emma Sarran Webster and Caitlin Wolper, 7 Essen- 12 Kenneth Quinnell, The Anniversary of the Equal Pay tial Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court Rulings to Act Reminds Us to Keep Working to Close the Gender Know About, (May 4, 2018), https://www.teenvogue. Pay Gap, (Jun. 11, 2018), https://aflcio.org/2018/6/11/ com/story/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-rulings- anniversary-equal-pay-act-reminds-us-keep-working- to-know-about close-gender-pay-gap 17 Timeline for Women’s Rights, http://www.digitalhisto- 13 Duren v. Missouri 439 U.S. 357 (1979) ry.uh.edu/timelines/timelinetopics.cfm?tltopicid=3 (last Duren was convicted of first-degree murder and visited on Feb.