Retired Women Should Get More Pension Than Retired Men
By: Linda Caroll
Tags: Women, Retirement, Feminism, Culture, Advice

In 1963, a woman earned 59¢ for every dollar a man earned doing the same job. On June 10, 1963, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act — the aim was to end gender based wage disparity.

It failed.

In the years since 1963, the gender pay gap has narrowed by less than half a cent per year. Today, women earn around 82¢ for every dollar a man earns.

A woman needs to get one degree more than a man to earn the same salary.

According to a 2018 wage gap report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, a woman with a bachelor’s degree earns roughly the same salary as a man with an associate’s degree.

Even a higher level of education doesn’t result in equal pay. Women with a master’s degree earn $83,000 a year, which is close to, but still lower than, the average salary of $87,000 that men with a bachelor’s degree earn.

It’s even worse for women of color.

Latina women earn 54¢ for every dollar paid to white, non-Latino men, while the ratio is 57¢ for Native Americans and 63¢ for African-Americans.

In other words, men earn more than women performing the same jobs, across all industries and fields, with pitifully few exceptions. And when the women aren’t white women, the gap is even wider.

As careers progress, men are promoted more often and the gender pay gap continues to grow.

Over the course of a career, the difference is more than a million dollars.

Evelyn Murphy, economist and president of the Wage Project says over the course of a career, the cost of wage disparity is outrageous.

Roughly 750,000 over a lifetime for a woman who is not college educated, and a whopping 1.2 million in lost salary for a college educated woman.

Waiting for wage parity isn’t a solution.

With the wage gap only closing at the snail’s rate of half a percent a year, women will not have wage parity until 2059.

So what’s the solution?

Retired women should get more pension than retired men. Simple as that.

The government has clout they choose not to use. For example, when the Federal Minimum wage goes up, it’s not optional. Companies have to comply.

Yes, there will always be companies that hire illegal workers or find a way to pay less than minimum wage. They are not the majority. Affecting the majority would make a big difference.

The Federal government of any country could end wage disparity instantly if they choose to. They choose not to. Despite the Equal Pay act signed more than half a century ago, they choose to look the other way as wage disparity continues.

So perhaps they should pony up the difference and pay retired women the wages lost over a lifetime of working.

Wouldn’t even matter if the woman is married or single...

If she’s married, she’d finally be able to add to the coffers and her bigger pension would compensate for the lower pension her husband will be getting.

If she’s single, she’ll be able to afford a decent lifestyle. Because it goes without saying that women who have always earned less are less able to save for retirement as well. That hurts single women disproportionately.

Perhaps if the government had to pony up a lifetime of lost wages, that might be the incentive to crack down on companies who perpetuate the wage gap. It might be the only way to achieve parity before 2059.

Now we just need a woman to take the idea and run with it. Preferably one that isn’t working too many hours to compensate for getting less pay.