On Tuesday, April 8, the Wisconsin Women’s Network recognizes Equal Pay Day, which marks the average number of days an American woman must work into 2014 in order to make what an average man earned in 2013. Equal Pay Day is not a day of celebration. Instead, on Equal Pay Day, women and men raise awareness about the abhorrent income inequality in our country. We should be ashamed that women still only make 77 cents to every dollar earned by men. For women of color, the wage gap is even greater.

We believe that pay equity is a crucial step in ensuring the economic security of families in Wisconsin. Income inequality, coupled with higher costs of living, has forced many women to choose between taking a sick child to the doctor and paying their rent. In addition, while women have increasingly become the primary earners for their families, they still make up two-thirds of minimum wage workers. While raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would benefit 17 million American women, closing the wage gap would benefit countless more.

Wisconsin’s economy thrives when we value the hard-working women of our communities and begin to invest in strategies to reduce income disparities. We want to be able to stop counting the number of days in a calendar year it takes for Wisconsin women to earn what men earn. We need to end pay inequity and improve the lives of women and their families.

Amanda Ward ([email protected]) is a sophomore and the administrator/project assistant with the Wisconsin Women’s Network. She wrote this with assistance from her supervisor, Katherine Dellenbach.

[Photo by Flickr user House Democrats]