Gender still plays too big a role in setting salaries

Today, American women make up nearly half the workforce, receive their college and graduate degrees at a greater rate than men and are often the sole or co-breadwinners of their families. Yet on average, women continue to make significantly less money than their male counterparts.

The issue of unequal pay is an intransigent one to which much attention has been paid over the years, but little progress has been made. It resurfaced most recently with the U.S. Women's Soccer team, whose players brazenly brought the issue front and center after their fourth World Cup victory. Despite having indisputably been more successful than their male counterparts and, in recent years, actually subsidizing losses in revenue by the men's team, the U.S. Soccer Federation insists that the differences in pay are due to "aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex."

Notwithstanding the ubiquity of the issue, the concept of equal pay is still widely misunderstood. Under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, it is illegal to pay employees less for equal work on account of their gender, race, age or national origin. Yet by virtually all indexes, women on average continue to get paid less.

The most familiar statistic cited states that women are paid 80 cents for every dollar earned by white men. What is not as well-known is the wage gap is larger for women of color: Black women make 62 cents, Native American women, 57 cents and Latina women, 53 cents.

The wage gap also increases as women age. Studies show that women aged 20 to 24 years get paid 90% compared to their male peers; women aged 25 to 54 years earn 78-89%; and women aged 55 to 65 years receive 78% or less.

The gender pay gap is a perpetual issue that affects women, men and children demonstrably. Lower earning makes it harder for women to take care of their families. A report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that if women were paid fairly, single women's income would rise by 13.4 percent, single mothers would earn 17 percent more and married women's income would increase by 6 percent. These wage increases could also reduce levels of poverty for single mothers by over 50 percent.

Furthermore, women consistently accrue less in benefits like Social Security and pensions because they are based on a lower salary. Studies show there is an $8,000 gap between the average retirement income that men and women receive annually, which is especially significant for women who have no other financial support upon which to rely.

Over the last few decades, men have increasingly turned to women as a source of financial support, particularly in communities of color, where the general unemployment rate is higher.

Though the reasons for this persistent wage gap are varied, there exists another, rarely spoken cultural reality: women, in general, tend to be poor negotiators for themselves. Even for those who have invested the same time and money into higher education as their male counterparts, women have historically been conditioned to accept what is offered and be grateful.

There are also more formal efforts under way to neutralize overt gender discrimination. In addition to increases in minimum wage at the state level, Illinois is on the cusp of being the latest state to pass a "no salary history" bill, making it illegal for an employer to require a job applicant to disclose how much she or he was making at a prior job. Federally, HR 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act seeks to provide equal pay for men and women who do the same jobs by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide remedies for employees who face gender discrimination.

In the words of Lily Ledbetter, "equal pay for equal work is an American value." But we will only make this ideal of equality a reality when we finally make women's pay commensurate with their qualifications and skills instead of their gender.

Audra Wilson, of Chicago, is executive director of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, a 3,000-member branch of the national League of Women Voters. The League is a nonpartisan, civic engagement group that seeks to influence public policy through education and advocacy.