The More You Know

Women Could Buy An Extra 14 Cars In Their Lifetimes If Gender Pay Gap Didn’t Exist

Tomorrow is National Equal Pay Day! In addition to being a super sexy sounding holiday, obviously, the day marks how far into 2012 the average woman would have to work to earn as much as her male counterpart earned in 2011. That’s right, we’re all stuck in last year mode, financially speaking.

While we know all of you regularly liven up your weekly cocktail banter with red-hot factoids on gender pay inequity (No? That’s just me?), we have a few more tidbits to help put this issue in perspective.

In New York, for example, the median yearly pay for working women is $41,570 — compared to men, who rake in $50,228, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families, which compiled a helpful list of things New York women would be able to buy if we had as much money as the dudes.

If the wage gap were eliminated in New York, for starters, women could afford an extra 67 weeks of food every year, according to the National Partnership data, and 2,283 more gallons of gas. Also worth noting — we could afford roughly 481 12-count boxes of Jack Link’s premium cut teriyaki jerky as well as around 288 bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Just putting that out there.

Jezebel, meanwhile, got its hands on all kinds of depressing data from the Center for American Progress, which showed that women lose roughly $431,360 in the course of their lifetimes due to the gender pay gap. That means an extra 14 cars (roughly one Jay Leno) lost from cradle to grave. Not cool.

[via Catalyst]

TAGS: gender pay inequity | women pay gap

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