Women’s pay still
lagging behind men’s

If the current rate of increase
continues, pay equity may
be reached in 2059

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By Sally Apgar
sapgar@starbulletin.com

Forty years ago the Equal Pay Act was passed so that women and people of color could earn the same as men for the same work.

In 1963, women were paid 59 cents to each dollar a man earned. Today, women nationally are paid 76 cents to each dollar a man earns. That is a gain of 17 cents in 40 years -- an average of less than half of one cent per year.

At this rate, pay equity between men and women might be earned in about 2059.

"You've come a long way baby," joked Terry Lau, spokesman for the AFL-CIO, at a news conference yesterday by the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women to observe Equal Pay Day.

Getting serious, Lau said there has been progress in closing the gap but that more work needs to be done.

In Hawaii, where women have the nation's highest per-capita membership in unions, which pay men and women equally for the same jobs, women earn 79 cents to each dollar a man earns. At that rate of a little more than a half-cent a year, Hawaii could close the wage gap in 2040. But some union leaders admit that women do not get the highest-paying jobs in the unions.

Joanne Kealoha, spokeswoman for Local 142 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union told the audience that "women in unions earn 20 percent to 40 percent more than their nonunion counterparts."

However, she said women are not in the top-paid union jobs. "When I visit union members at hotels in Waikiki, I never see any women in engineering and the high-paying jobs. And I don't see them in the top-paid" dock jobs.

Pay inequities even exist in prisons. Kat Brady, representing the Community Alliance on Prisons, said female inmates are paid 28 cents an hour to work in prison kitchens. Male inmates are paid 68 cents an hour for the same work.

"Women's pay issues are family issues," said Brady.

The commission also pointed out these national statistics:

>> There are more than 66 million working women making up 48 percent of the national labor force.

>> More than 1 million women earn wages below the federal minimum wage.

>> Nearly three-quarters of all mothers are in the labor force. Even among mothers with young children, 70 percent work for pay.

>> The wage gap continues to widen with age. In 2001, women ages 16-24 earned 90 percent of what their male counterparts did. Women age 25 and over earned 78 percent, and women age 65 and over earned only 68 percent of men their age.

>> Women who graduate from college earn 72 percent as much as men with the same education.