Despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act more than five decades ago, women are still underrepresented in high paying jobs and get paid less for the same work because of sexism and the underlying bias that they don’t need the money.
Women of color experience the widest wage gap for the same jobs. Black women make only 61 cents on the dollar as white men and Hispanic women only 53 cents. On top of being paid even less for the work they do than their white counterparts, they experience lower median weekly earnings, higher rates of poverty and higher unemployment even though they are accessing higher education more than ever.
Women in unions experience a smaller wage gap than women without a union. Support for prevailing wage laws, project labor agreements and apprenticeship programs for women contribute to construction having the lowest wage gap.