WFTV Orlando: Report exposes gender pay gap in U.S. workforce, disparity greatest for women of color

December 16. 2022

ERA Policy Director & Deputy Legal Director Jessica Ramey Stender is featured on Orlando news station WFTV 9 speaking about pay discrimination.

“There are many different contributors to this overall gender and race-based wage gap that we see,” said Jessica Stender, Policy Director and Deputy Legal Director at Equal Rights Advocates. “One is pay discrimination, meaning women being paid less than their male counterparts for doing the same or substantially similar work… That secrecy that often surrounds pay is another contributor to the gender pay gap because women often aren’t even aware that they are being underpaid.”

Stender said occupational segregation is another factor, which involves the trend of women, particularly women of color, being concentrated in lower paying jobs.

“We need to continue to enact robust equal pay and anti-discrimination laws at the state level because of this inaction at the federal level,” said Stender. “There is still more work to be done but knowing that we have this continued momentum of people, legislators, the general public understanding the really incredibly harmful toll of the gender pay gap, and also pushing for change to address it, that’s one ray of hope.”

Read the article and/or watch the segment here.