Today marks Equal Pay Day in the United States, a date noted on the calendar every year to symbolize how far into 2013 women must work to earn what men earned in 2012.
While we, both as a state and as a nation, have come so far in terms of recognizing the importance of equality in terms of race, gender and, thankfully, sexual orientation as well, the truth of the matter is that women are still facing discrimination in their paycheck every single day. Even more troubling is that for the first time in years, the problem has actually gotten worse.
The latest report from the National Women’s Law Center shows that the earning gap between men and women widened across the nation recently as women are earning only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men with that gap even larger for women of color. Here in Michigan we’ve fallen to 45th in terms of income equality between men and women in the United States with women earning only 74 cents compared to men in our state.
Yet, at a time when we should be working to find solutions to this problem, Republicans seem content to make it worse. While “Right to Work” has been widely criticized for a number of very valid reasons, one critically important one is the fact that it jeopardizes language in contracts that unions have fought for to require equal pay for women. Unfortunately, even as I spoke out on the Senate floor to point this fact out to my Republican colleagues as they rushed to pass that terrible legislation, they responded with indifference.
We can, and must, do better. As we mark today as Equal Pay Day across the United States, let’s remind legislators here in Lansing that as we fight to create jobs across Michigan we must also fight to enact the policies that value women’s work and foster a thriving economy for us all.
We owe it Michigan’s next generation of women leaders to do nothing less.
Gretchen Whitmer
Michigan Senate Democratic Leader