“Good morning! I make 80 cents for every dollar that a man makes,” a woman told passersby as they exited New York City’s Bryant Park subway station on Tuesday morning. The woman, who makes a living passing out newspapers to commuters, was not the only one sharing such statistics during the annual equal pay day. A few blocks away, Hillary Clinton was about to take the stage at the New York Times Center to address exactly the same issue.
“It’s equal pay day,” Clinton told the audience of about 250 women before returning to what, for her, appear to be more pressing matters. “It is also the one-year anniversary of my journey … my campaign.”
Clinton, the former US secretary of state and current Democratic presidential candidate, is currently the only woman running for the highest office. Yet, speaking about the issue that many women face in their workplace, Clinton has yet to share any personal anecdotes about negotiating for higher pay or about the time that she might have found herself earning less than her male counterparts.
Despite assuring the audience that she has “lived through all of this”, Clinton shared little of her personal experience. The closest she came on Tuesday was when she relayed a story about a young girl asking her if she was going to be paid as much as a “boy president”.
“We don’t know what the pay gaps are in many settings, predominantly in the private sector,” Clinton admitted. “In the public sector there is more transparency. You are being paid by taxpayers’ dollars. Like I told that little girl, I think I’d be paid the same, because that’s on the record.”
While Clinton has spent most of her life in the public sector, she did at one point work as a lawyer in Arkansas. In fact, Clinton was the first female lawyer to be hired by Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, where she worked at the time when her husband and former US president Bill Clinton became the state’s attorney general.
Yet instead of sharing her personal experience from the law firm – where, according to a 1994 New York Times article, she was among the lower-paid partners due to time spent outside the office – Clinton shared anecdotes she has picked up while campaigning. One such anecdote was about a 17-year-old “young man” who got hired to work as a cashier at the same store where his mom had worked for years. Excited about his first paycheck, mother and son opened it together only to realize that her son was earning more than her.
“Last time I checked there is no discount for being a woman,” Clinton told the audience. “Groceries don’t cost us less. Rent doesn’t cost us less.”
Yet, as Clinton pointed out, a gender wage gap still persists.
According to the US census, in 2014 women were still earning just 79% of men’s wages. That year, median earnings for men were $50,400 a year while women earned on average about $39,600. What’s more, for every age group, starting at 18 years old, women are more likely to live in poverty than men. For example, about 18.2% of women aged 25 to 34 years old live in poverty while 11.3% of men do.
The gender wage gap becomes even wider when it is broken down by race. African American women earn just 64 cents for every dollar that white men do, while Hispanic women earn 54 cents.
Class of 2015: women are still making less than men – and prospects are poor
In addition to bias – both conscious and unconscious – “there are other reasons why women end up earning less than men over the course of their lifetime,” Clinton said. “I am very proud that New York and California have raised the minimum wage, because two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. Two-thirds of workers in tipped jobs are women, and those jobs are hard. They are insecure and they don’t pay nearly enough. I hope the rest of the country will catch up with New York and California. Women all over America deserve a raise.”
Yet Clinton has stopped short of endorsing the $15 minimum wage, which has been championed by her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, instead supporting a more moderate proposal of $12 an hour as the new federal minimum wage.
As she continues to campaign for president, Clinton is likely to speak on this issue again – even if it’s without personal anecdotes.
“Occasionally, when I give a speech like this, which I do practically every day, people will say: ‘Oh there she goes, she is playing the gender card’,” Clinton said. “What I say to that is: if talking about equal pay and paid leave and more opportunities for women in the world is playing the gender card, deal me in.”
(TheGuardian)
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