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Celebrate Equal Pay Day!
Equal Pay Day is coming up! Celebrate the fight to close the wage gap on April 28, 2009.
The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) created Equal Pay Day in 1996 as an effort to raise public awareness about the gender wage gap in the U.S. According to the NCPE, “The day symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year.” The day always falls on a Tuesday because Tuesday is the day on which women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the previous week.
The timing of Equal Pay Day is based on the national average gender wage gap, which is 23 percent (women, on average, make 77 cents to a man’s dollar). Wyoming women face an even larger gap than 23 percent; according to the Wyoming Council for Women’s Issues Wyoming Women Status Report, Wyoming’s average wage gap is 37 percent (meaning that women in Wyoming, on average, make 63 cents to a man’s dollar). In fact, Wyoming’s wage gap is the largest in the nation, weighing in a full 14 percentage points behind the national statistic.
The NCPE is dedicated to pay equity for all American citizens, and Equal Pay Day is only one way they are working toward bridging the wage gap. On Equal Pay Day last year, the NCPE held a press conference on Capitol Hill in support of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This year, the NCPE and people across the nation are celebrating the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. President Obama signed the act into law on January 29, 2009.
On April 8th, 2009, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal recognized this disparity in Wyoming and signed a declaration declaring April 28th Equal Pay day in our state. The Wyoming Women’s Foundation, along with the NCPE, invites everyone to wear red to symbolize “how far women and minorities are ‘in the red’ with their pay.” Wyoming has farther to go than any other state in the nation, which means that we must continue working tirelessly to close our state’s high gender wage gap. The Wyoming Women’s Foundation is committed to closing the gap. Join us in our cause!
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