Gender Pay Gap Continues 50 Years After Enactment of Equal Pay Act

Patricia Arquette’s now famous Oscar acceptance speech in which she declared: “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America" has brought the continuing problem of wage disparity between men and women once again to the forefront of the public debate.

The Federal Equal Pay Act was enacted over 50 years ago and yet employers still continue to pay women employees less than men doing the same job. Full-time working women make about 77 percent of what full-time working men earn and the gender wage gap widens as women get older. The gender wage gap doesn’t just hurt women, it hurts families because two-thirds of women are either the primary breadwinner for their family or are a joint breadwinner with their spouse.

Women deserve equal pay for equal work and for many women the only way to achieve that is through filing a lawsuit under the Equal Pay Act or the Iowa Civil Rights Act.