Today is Women’s Equal Pay Day. This marks the day the average woman must work until to earn what her white, non-Hispanic, male counterpart earned in 12 months. That is nearly 3 months of additional work!

Why? Because women working year-round, full-time only earn 83%, and that drops to 75% for all workers, including part-time and seasonal workers.

The gender pay gap is even greater for mothers of every race because of the motherhood penalty. Moms working full-time, year-round, were paid 74 cents, and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) were paid 62 cents for every dollar paid to dads in 2023.

Here is the 2025 recap (based on 2023 data).              

It is important to note that (1) there is inadequate data for LGBTQIA+ women (the above is based on a 2023 study from GLAAD), and (2) there are significant differences within each category.

Why are these numbers different?  They reflect the intersection and compounding of biases. When we take into account biases attributable to race, ethnicity, age, motherhood, sexual orientation, gender identity, tribe, and other factors, the gender pay gap increases significantly with each additional bias.

The gender pay gap, which compounds over the years, leads to a significant wealth gap, as well as increased poverty for older women.

With little progress over the past few decades, it is obvious that current protections against pay inequities, including the Equal Pay Act, are grossly inadequate. And courts continue to make it more difficult to establish discrimination.

At the current pace, the World Economic Forum estimates that gender equality will be attained in 2158. That is 134 years and approximately five generations from now!

Women cannot wait any longer. Especially women of color.

If we want to eliminate the gender pay gap, we need the Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA”) enshrined in our Constitution. The ERA grants women, girls and LGBTQIA+ people equal protection and ensures that work-related unequal pay claims are subject to a strict scrutiny standard of review (with a 30-53% greater likelihood of success). The ERA and the higher standard of review that comes with it will give the Equal Pay Act the teeth needed to put an end to the pay disparities and blatant gender discrimination.

We will need to take additional steps, such as ensuring access to quality, affordable childcare, requiring pay transparency, and eliminating the use of mandatory arbitration and confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements, which enable discrimination against women to secretly flourish without risk of exposure, in connection with any work-related claims.

Future generations need us to take action NOW to effectuate the long overdue change. 134 years is unacceptable.