US Women’s Soccer Team Earns Equal Pay

Let’s celebrate the small wins – Things are changing in women’s soccer! Incredibly, the more successful and talented women’s soccer team will start earning equal pay to their counterparts. But let’s keep this in perspective to the rest of the women’s income compared to men. There is still a large gap.

Yes, let’s celebrate that the pay gap has decreased 20 percent in the last 60 years, but as the 2019 US Census show¹ (see graph below), there is still a 17 percent gap in wages.

That is, on average, a $10,150 a year disadvantage (See map below).

Interactive version of the above map.²

So yes, just like John Kotter (creator of the 8-Step Process for Leading Change) says, let’s celebrate the short-term wins. But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture. We have a lot further to go.  

And because of the pandemic, the gap may widen. Nearly 3 million American women³ have left the labor force during the pandemic due to being furloughed, laid off or quitting to care for their children whose daycares closed or schools were remote. Studies show that women's participation in the labor force declined a 2.8 percent at the beginning of the pandemic. Between February and April 2020, more than 2 in 5 of the 12.2 million women lost or left their jobs. And as of February 2021, they still had not returned to the workforce.⁴ These women, if they decide to come back, will most likely take a loss in salary, or have to take a lower-level job, if they even choose to re-enter the workforce.

Even worse are most women of color. Comparing the earnings of full-time, year-round workers by ethnicity and gender, black women earn $.064 on the dollar compared to men and Hispanic women $0.57.⁵

²Bureau, U. S. C. (2022, March 17). Gender pay gap. Census.gov. Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/gender-pay-gap.html

³Palmer, T. B. R. G. R. N. V. (n.d.). Pandemic pushes mothers of young children out of the Labor Force. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/pandemic-pushes-mothers-of-young-children-out-of-the-labor-force#_ftn1

⁴Another 275,000 women left the labor force in January. National Women's Law Center. (2021, February 5). Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://nwlc.org/resource/january-jobs-day-2021/

⁵President, J. C. V, et all (2022, March 29). Women of color and the wage gap. Center for American Progress. Retrieved May 20, 2022, from https://www.americanprogress.org/article/women-of-color-and-the-wage-gap/