Tuesday is Equal Pay Day, as the gender wage gap continues with alarming numbers into 2024

Tuesday marks Equal Pay Day, which is a reminder of the persistent income inequality between men and women.

The day symbolizes how far into the new year women must work just to earn the same amount as men in the previous year.

To put it simply: Women earn less than men on average so they must work longer for the same amount of pay.

EQUAL PAY, BY THE NUMBERS

This year marks 61 years since the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The data has been tracked since 1979 and while there are signs that the gender pay gap is closing all these years later, for many, it's not nearly fast enough.

Research shows it has remained mostly unchanged over the past 20 years.

According to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the National Women’s Law Center, women still earn 18 percent less than men on average.

Full-time working women earn just 84 cents for every dollar a man makes across the country. In Texas, it's just 80 cents.     

If you stretch this data for all women over many years, it can have a huge impact on a woman’s ability to save for retirement. 

A 20-year-old woman just starting full-time, year-round work stands to lose nearly half a million dollars over a 40-year career compared to a man.

These numbers are more alarming for women of color.

Black women earn 69 cents for every dollar while Latina women earn 57 cents.

For Black women, the lifetime wage gap adds up to $884,800, and for Latina women, the losses total $1,218,000, the nonprofit advocacy group found.

That also means that Black and Latina would have to work full time, year-round to nearly age 80 or 90 to make what white non-Hispanic men are paid by age 60, or they forfeit over $1 million in losses, according to CNBC.

According to a report by the Pew Research Center, there is no single reason for the pay gap will continue into 2024. Contributing factors include the fact that women are still more likely to pursue careers in lower-paying industries, and to take time out of the labor force or reduce the number of hours worked because of caretaking responsibilities — often referred to as the “motherhood penalty.”

Systemic bias has also played a role over the decades, something Cathy DeWitt Dunn, president and CEO of DeWitt & Dunn Financial Services in Dallas, has observed over her career.

"It's just really sad. It's really hard to put your finger on it, right? Because it's just that men just end up making more. And I think it started off as sometimes women are raising children at home and they're not out working once they get married so they're not in the workforce for many years," she said. "So we kind of start off a little bit behind the ball, even though we are working at home nonstop, but we're just not bringing home a paycheck.”

ADVOCATING FOR WOMEN

"When people come into my practice, I see the disparity on all the numbers and have for decades,” said DeWitt Dunn.

 She has worked for three decades in the financial field and says while there has been improvement, not much has changed.

"It's interesting when we sit down with our clients, and we take a look at their earnings and what they've done throughout their career. On average, I would say 75% of the women that come in here, their Social Security benefits are far less than what their spouse is receiving. And it just really hasn't changed much,” she said.

She weighed in on what women can do to set themselves up for the future.

"It definitely is something that we all have to think about and plan…I think one of the challenges is, as women typically are going to outlive men, so that means we're going to need more money in retirement,” DeWitt Dunn said. “And we're going to need to have additional money to support ourselves throughout our retirement years.”

DeWitt Dunn said it is crucial for women to save money starting at a young age and think ahead about retirement. Women are at a greater risk than men of not achieving a financially secure retirement. The median retirement savings for women is $43,000, less than half of men’s at $91,000.

"The biggest thing for me is just to save and save like you mean it. If you have a high deductible health insurance plan, maybe you need to look at opening a health savings plan where you can contribute money tax-free,” she said.

For 2024, you can save up to $23,000 in a 401(k) and $7,000 for an IRA. The IRA catch-up contribution limit for those aged 50 and older remains $1,000. If you’re a stay-at-home wife or mom, you can open a spousal IRA account to save towards your retirement, so long as you file jointly with your spouse.

When it comes to Social Security, DeWitt Dunn said it’s important to consider delaying collecting benefits until you reach your full retirement age.

“For every year you wait to claim benefits after you reach full retirement age, you will receive an 8% annual increase to your monthly benefit until age 70,” she said.

For those still in their early working years, some good news out of the pandemic is that the tight post-pandemic labor market has given workers more leverage with higher wages and salaries over the past year. Remote work trends since the pandemic have also helped make it easier for moms and other women to work from home and care for children. However, inflation and other economic issues have offset some of those gains.

Still, women should advocate for themselves in the workplace – and it’s something DeWitt Dunn said more women should feel empowered to do.

"One of the things that I tell women in my practice when they're taking a look at doing their budgeting and doing their planning for the year [and realize] maybe they haven't received a raise. Go back and take a look at all the contributions that you've made to the company. What have you done to empower yourself to be able to walk into your manager or human resources and say, look what I've contributed? I've helped do this, this and this – and then maybe start negotiating to get a pay raise,” she said.

DeWitt Dunn added, "And then if that doesn't work, then perhaps empower yourself to take all of the knowledge and everything that you've done at your current employer and go market yourself to see, maybe I could get a pay raise by maybe shifting and changing jobs."