Roys campaign: Statement on Equal Pay Day

CONTACT:  Brian Evans, 630-217-7561

MADISON, WI — Entrepreneur, small business owner, and gubernatorial candidate Kelda Roys is holding an event in Milwaukee today to bring attention to the gender wage gap and Equal Pay Day.

Equal Pay Day marks the date when women’s wages finally catch up to what men earned during the previous year. To match men’s earnings in 2017, women have to work an extra one hundred days. Persistent pay disparities mean that women have a harder time paying for education, more difficulty affording a home, and are less able to save money for retirement. Pay equity means addressing the structural inequalities that accord less value to labor traditionally done by women, than that traditionally done by men. To fully close the wage gap, we must not only pay women and men equally for equivalent work, but increase wages in occupations dominated by women.  

Governor Scott Walker repealed the 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act, making it harder for women who are the victims of pay discrimination to have their day in court.

“As governor, I will work to increase wages for all workers – and to close the persistent wage gap that harms women as well as their partners and children,” said Kelda Roys. “Equal pay is not just a matter of fairness, but it affects the economic security of our families and the strength of our economy as a whole We deserve a governor who supports workers instead of attacking them.”

Progress for some – but not all – women in Wisconsin is not enough. Women from communities of color face much larger wage disparities than white women, in addition to racial inequalities in wealth, which compound wage inequality across generations. We must address gender pay disparities while also tackling persistent racial inequalities in wages for women of color.

“Gender and racial wage disparities will persist as long as our leaders ignore them,” added Roys. “Good intentions are not enough — as governor, I will take concrete action to improve wages, build wealth, and create equity for women and communities of color across Wisconsin, to benefit all Wisconsinites.”

For Wisconsin-specific data on the wage gap, please visit: http://www.nationalpartnership.org/issues/fairness/4-2018-wage-gap-map.html

The data below is from the website for the National Partnership for Women and Families:

Each year, Wisconsin women are typically paid this much less than men:

 

If the annual gender wage gap were eliminated, a working woman in Wisconsin would have enough money, on average, to purchase the following.

 

Additional months of child care:

 

Additional months of rent:

 

Additional years of tuition and fees for a four-year public university:

 

NOTES: The data are based on comparisons of median wages for women working full-time, year-round compared to men; for women of color, the gap is calculated by comparing the difference between the wages of women of color compared to white, non-Hispanic men who work full-time year-round. If a field contains an asterisk (*), data for this population in this state are available, but high variability in the margin of error associated with the wage gap means the results are too uncertain to report.