Donald Trump has been named president-elect. The future of our rights, our bodily autonomy, our freedom feels uncertain.
The National Women’s Law Center will be vigilantly defending against attacks on our rights and for opportunities to expand them.
Among full-time, year-round workers, women in the United States are typically paid only 84 cents for every dollar paid to men. This gap in earnings translates into $9,990 less per year in median earnings, leaving women and their families shortchanged.
The loss of 16 cents on the dollar adds up over a month, a year, and a lifetime. Based on this wage gap, women, regardless of their race or ethnicity, would lose $399,600 over the course of a 40-year career. For Native women compared to white, non-Hispanic men, the career losses mount to $1,149,880, for Latinas the losses are $1,218,000, for Black women the losses are $884,800, and for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander women (AANHPI) the losses are $187,616. If action isn’t taken to close the wage gap, a woman starting her career today stands to lose between hundreds of thousands of dollars and more than $1 million over the course of her career, undercutting her ability to provide for herself and her family, build wealth, gain education, and secure her retirement.
Assuming a woman, regardless of her race or ethnicity, begins working full time, year-round at age 20, the wage gap means she would have to work until she is nearly 68 years old to be paid what her male counterpart would be paid by age 60. Black, Latina, and Native women would have to work full time, year-round to nearly age 80 or 90—beyond their life expectancies—to make what white non-Hispanic men are paid by age 60.