Equal Pay Day shows how many days into new year women have to work to earn as much as men
NEW YORK -- Equal Pay Day is held on March 14th to symbolize how many more days women have to work to earn as much as men did the previous year.
"Women are equal and we deserve equality," feminist leader Eleanor Smeal said at Tuesday's gathering on the Upper East Side of equal pay activists to talk about a long fight to close the pay gap.
According to the Pew Research Center, on average, a woman make 82 cents for every dollar earned by a man, and that woman works until March 14th, 2023 to earn what he did in 2022.
"The bottom line is, the higher women climb in the workplace, the less we make compared to men," former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said at the gathering.
READ MORE: U.S. Soccer reaches milestone agreement to pay its women's and men's teams equally
Recent cases about pay have made headlines.
"I did not expect the overwhelming response to the tweet," said poet and writer Kimberly Nguyen, who took her personal fight over equal pay to social media. Her tweet was viewed more than 12 million times.
She saw a job listing for her company paying what she said was at least $30,000 more than what she makes for the same position, which is user experience writer.
"Men and women asked for raises at an equal rate in 2022, but men were more likely to receive them. So since I haven't gotten my raise, I do have to wonder." Nguyen said.
Nguyen was able to find out about that pay disparity through a salary transparency law for New York City that went into effect in October.
"More people will be motivated to seek justice," said Jessica Neuwirth, attorney and author of "Equal Means Equal."
Neuwirth is pushing to strengthen laws nationwide.
"A company is going to look at the litigation risk and say it's just not worth it. I think also the media risk -- nobody wants to be out there targeted as a company that discriminates against women."
Opponents of some reforms have said they worry they could fuel what they call frivolous lawsuits and hurt businesses.
