Is the wage gap between genders and races discriminatory?

There are many considerations that come into the picture when an employer is deciding what a worker will earn. While this is understandable in terms of experience, time with the company and job duties, there are some factors that should never be part of the process.

Unfortunately, there are still some employees who make less than others based on factors that don’t have anything to do with their job performance, training or education. Factors like race and gender must never be considered when they are trying to set a person’s salary.

Trending in the right direction

The wage gaps for gender and race are trending in the right direction. For weekly gender earnings, the rate of employees who are making the same regardless of gender has increased from 64.2 percent in 1980 to 81.8 percent now. The majority of the progress made isn’t recent. In fact, from 2016 to 2017, the rate dropped from its highest point of 81.9 percent, which occurred in 2016.

Troubling factors

When you break down the wage gap even more, things get more troubling for some women. Typically, white women earn a wage closest to men. Women of other races earn less, with one exception. Asian workers are likely to have higher weekly earnings than any other race, but most studies focus on white employees versus other races when looking at race-based facts. One reason for Asian workers to have higher earnings is that they tend to have more education than other races, regardless of gender.

In 2017, black women made 92.5 percent of a black man’s wages and 67.7 percent of a white man’s wages. Hispanic women earned 62.2 percent of the earnings a white man in the same position would receive and 87.4 percent of a Hispanic man’s earnings. This shows that non-white men make less than white men and non-white women make less than most non-white men.

Is the pay gap discriminatory?

It is difficult to prove that a pay gap is discriminatory. However, there are some cases in which this is clearly evident. If you feel that you have been discriminated against when it comes to pay or any other reason, you have legal options to rectify the situation. Learn what you can do and plan accordingly. You shouldn’t sit back and let this happen when you can take action.