According to the 2012 census, Texas women are paid roughly eighty-two cents on the dollar as compared to men. Black women are paid about fifty-nine cents on the dollar and Latino women are paid 45 cents on the dollar for the same work as their male counterparts.

College-educated women working full time earn more than a half million dollars less than their male counterparts over the course of a lifetime. Four in 10 mothers are primary breadwinners in their households, and nearly two-thirds are significant earners, making pay equity critical to families’ economic security.

Equal pay for equal work is not only an issue that affects women in the present time, it affects them negatively over their life span. A woman’s lifetime of lower pay means less income to save for retirement and less income counted in a Social Security or pension benefit formula.

Perhaps this is why Texas ranks so high in poverty for families and for elderly women. We rank 14th among the states in pay gap. Lubbock County ranks 22nd out of the 254 counties in Texas, with our ratio of 76% lower than the state-wide.

This issue affects all women in Texas, not just poor women or Democratic women. Suburban Republican women who are part of a two-income household are affected by the Texas pay gap as well.