Why is equal pay an urgent issue now?

Equal pay matters because it is a glaring injustice and subjects millions of women and families to lives of entrenched poverty and opportunity gaps

What should be done?

As governments shape policies to address the fallout from the global COVID-19 crisis, it is urgent that we put female workers on equal footing as male workers. Women make up the majority of workers on the front lines of the pandemic. They’re providing essential health and care services and therefore face a host of additional risks and stresses. Furthermore, 305 million full-time jobs have been lost since the start of the pandemic, and, unlike many previous economic crises where job loss has often been greatest in male-dominated industries, this crisis is hitting women’s work at least as hard as men’s, if not more.

As more women face economic hardships because of COVID-19, the fight for equal pay takes on a new sense of urgency because those who earn the least are most damaged by income discrepancy. In the United States, Black women earn only 62 cents, Native women 57 cents, and Latinas 54 cents for every one dollar that white men earn. Where money is tight, shorted pay can prevent women and families from putting food on the table, securing safe housing, and accessing critical medical care and education--impacts that can perpetuate cycles of poverty across generations.