Gender wage gap robs Washington women of over $10 billion each year

http://www.eoionline.org/blog/gender-wage-gap-robs-washington-women-of-10191456788-each-year/

Women and families in Washington and around the nation continue to struggle under an unflinching gender wage-gap. Today, on Equal Pay Day, let’s reflect on what the wage gap means for Washington women and families and what we can do here at home to make a better world for our daughters.

Women in Washington earn 78 cents for every man’s dollar. That’s over $11,000 a year in lost earnings. For women of color, it’s even worse. On average, African American women are paid 64 cents and Latinas are paid 54 cents for every dollar paid to white men.

We can’t afford to wait for D.C. to take action. In Washington, we can lead the nation on equal pay and pass a state version of the Paycheck Fairness Act. Cities like Seattle are championing equal pay practices at the local level – looking at pay bias in historically gender-segregated roles like administrative work, strengthening the city’s minimum wage and universalizing city employee parental leave policies.