Women experience $513 billion in lost wages a year because of the stubborn pay gap that persists between them and their male peers, according to a new report from the American Association of University Women.
The consequences of women earning 80 cents on average for every dollar brought home by a man can impact nearly every aspect of their lives, from the ability to pay off college debt to their decisions about having children to how financially stable they are when they ultimately retire.
“Women right away from the first job are earning less,” says Kim Churches, AAUW’s CEO, who added that women disproportionately accumulate more student loan debt than their male peers. “So, here you are saddled with more debt. Now, you have a pay gap. And it continues throughout your life….That compounding goes all the way through to retirement.”
The wage disparity begins to widen almost immediately, with 20-year-old working women tending to earn 90 cents for every dollar paid to a male peer. But, by the time they turn 54, women are earning 22 cents less on average, according to the AAUW report.