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Closing The Gender Wage Gap Would Create 'Huge' Economic Stimulus, Economists Say
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/24/gender-wage-gap-economic-stimulus_n_2007588.html
When 24-year-old preschool teacher Katherine Fenton stood up at the second presidential debate and asked the candidates what they planned to do about the gender wage gap, both candidates dodged the question, and conservatives collectively rolled their eyes at the mention of one of their least favorite of the Democrats' talking points. But lost in the election season banter over women's issues is the fact that pay equity, if taken seriously, could stimulate the economy to at least twice the degree that President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus bill did.
According to a new study by the American Association of University Women, a woman who graduates from the same school and in the same major as her male classmate and takes a full-time job in the same occupation as he does earns an average 7 percent less than him one year out of school. That gap widens the longer a woman works, so that over the course of her 35-year career, a woman with a college degree will make an average of $1.2 million less than a man with the same level of education.
If that gap were to close and women were to be paid the difference, economist Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, estimates that the stimulus effect would grow the U.S. economy by at least three to four percentage points. The $800 billion economic stimulus package that Congress passed in 2009 to bail banks out of the recession, by contrast, is estimated to have grown the GDP by less than 1.5 percent overall.
"That's a pretty good-sized stimulus," Hartmann told The Huffington Post. "We'd love to have that kind of growth right now."
When 24-year-old preschool teacher Katherine Fenton stood up at the second presidential debate and asked the candidates what they planned to do about the gender wage gap, both candidates dodged the question, and conservatives collectively rolled their eyes at the mention of one of their least favorite of the Democrats' talking points. But lost in the election season banter over women's issues is the fact that pay equity, if taken seriously, could stimulate the economy to at least twice the degree that President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus bill did.
According to a new study by the American Association of University Women, a woman who graduates from the same school and in the same major as her male classmate and takes a full-time job in the same occupation as he does earns an average 7 percent less than him one year out of school. That gap widens the longer a woman works, so that over the course of her 35-year career, a woman with a college degree will make an average of $1.2 million less than a man with the same level of education.
If that gap were to close and women were to be paid the difference, economist Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, estimates that the stimulus effect would grow the U.S. economy by at least three to four percentage points. The $800 billion economic stimulus package that Congress passed in 2009 to bail banks out of the recession, by contrast, is estimated to have grown the GDP by less than 1.5 percent overall.
"That's a pretty good-sized stimulus," Hartmann told The Huffington Post. "We'd love to have that kind of growth right now."
We need to push hard for the Paycheck Fairness Act next year.
7 replies
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I'm at work, but I noticed they put nurses in a typical near dismissive category, I get why, they're addressing other probably authoritative type jobs, but it undermines what nursing has accomplished. I'll post more when I get home or tomorrow
An as pointed out upthread, it's not at all likely that giving women a raise will be the preferred mitigation method.
http://www.aauw.org/GraduatetoaPayGap/upload/AAUWGraduatingtoaPayGapReport.pdf
Historically, this is what employers have done to close the pay gap.
