Dear Editor:

 

Since thousands of women have been marching to protest unequal rights, I decided to research on the Internet the subject of wages between the sexes. Yes, there is an unequal pay scale between men and women.

The Democrats introduced a bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Republicans blocked this bill in 2012 and earlier in 2014.

Now I don’t know why this bill was defeated. It might be politics or the Democrats against the Republicans and vice versa.

In 2015, female full-time workers made only 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 20 percent.

In middle skill occupations, workers in jobs mainly done by women earn only 66 percent of workers in jobs mainly done by men.

According to Institute for Women’s Policy Research, if change continues at the slow pace it has done for the past 50 years, it will take 44 years for women to finally reach pay parity.

If current trends continue, Hispanic women will wait 232 years for equal pay and black women will wait 108 years.

There is only one occupation, bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks, where women have the same weekly earnings as men.

The individual states in these United States determine how women are to be treated insofar as wages, safety, health, political participation, work and family, poverty and opportunity, and reproductive rights.

In 2015, Minnesota stood out as the best state to endorse women’s rights, followed by Rhode Island, Colorado, Alaska, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Connecticut.

Ohio ranks as the worst of the worst. A step above Ohio and still worst are the Southern states of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida and Texas. Between the best and the worst are the rest of the states.

For further information, search for Institute for Women’s Policy Research online.

 

Bill Neil

LaGrange