Recently, there has been some controversy within our school about whether or not the wage gap exists due to a newly published article on our site. It is a very touchy subject because we all have our own opinions, which is 100% okay! I thought that we should have both sides of this debate published, so here we go! As for my position on this, I have done research on my own, on official government sites, to get to the bottom of this debate. Is there a wage gap between men and women? There absolutely is.  

On average, women make 83% less earnings than men (U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.)  These women have the same qualifications, job titles, and work load, yet they are still paid less! I will admit, it does differ by what job they have. For example, in construction, women are paid 91.3% of what men are paid, but in a legal position, women are paid a mere 56.7% of what men are (U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.)   

The wage gap has gotten significantly smaller throughout history, but in the last few decades progress has slowed. It is true that women make only 78 cents for every dollar a man makes. This is a proven fact, and if people want to argue that that is incorrect, they can take it up with the government, the U.S. Department of Labor, to be more specific. Many people claim that women make less money because of the major they chose, the amount of education they’ve received, or the hours they work. Brace yourselves- this is all a lie. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that women have outpaced men in educational attainment. And regardless of the amount of hours they work, it doesn’t change the fact that women’s hourly pay is less than men’s; women working the same hours on the same job as a man still made 83% less (U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.)  

I wanted to keep this article short and sweet, so all in all, the wage gap is NOT a myth. It is very real and affecting women everywhere! As much as people want to argue that the wage gap does not exist, they are wrong. Every fact I got for this article came from United States government official websites, so nothing in this article has been fraudulent. The links are down below!  

All credit to: The United States Department of Labor and The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/womens-earnings-83-percent-of-mens-but-vary-by- occupation.htm 

https://www.bls.gov/cps/earnings.htm 

https://www.dol.gov/wb/media/gender_wage_gap.pdf