The Wage Gap
Although some American receives income
from investments and pensions, most rely on weekly wages. The idea of a
mandated “minimum hourly wage” emerged as part of New Deal reforms.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), Congress sets the federal minimum
wage and determines who is exempted or covered by the law. Workers on small
farms are excluded; non-live-in domestic workers have been covered only since
2009. Opposition in Congress to raising the federal minimum wage is always stiff.
State legislatures set minimum hourly wages for workers in small companies or
in non-interstate-related jobs, causing substantial differenced across the
country. Labor union and social movements have demanded that employers pay not
just a minimum wage, but a living wage: one that covers housing, food, heating,
school, and health costs in the worker’s community.
Equal pay has been a central demand of the American women’s movement since
the 1960s. The Equal Pay Act (1963), made any sex-based wage discrimination
with the same job category illegal, but it has taken court cases to ensure the
law’s implementation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
enforces the Equal Pay Act. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, enforced by
the Justice Department, bans hiring and promotion discrimination against women.
Despite progress, the gender wage gap persists-and is even wider between the
average wages of White men and those earned by women of color. Women who gain
access to traditionally male occupations do not automatically achieve the wage
equality stipulated in law. And many women continue to work in “feminized
jobs,” which are undervalued and lowly paid. Even in these occupations, men
make, on average, more than women. Women’s advocates call not just for equal
pay within the same job category, but re-evaluations of the social value of
feminized jobs, and equitable pay between jobs of “comparable worth.”
The Department of Labor’s Wages and Hours Division enforces the federal
minimum wage, which covers all employees in enterprises with an annual value of
at least $500,000 and every individual employee doing a job with an inter-state
dimension: for example, a secretary who makes phone calls across state lines;
an assembly worker whose products cross states lines. State minimum wages apply
to those within a state working in small enterprises or in work unconnected to
inter-state commerce. Where the federal minimum is higher, it supersedes that
of the state; where the federal minimum is lower, the state’s own higher
minimum wage supersedes it. Some states simply adopt whatever is the current
federal minimum.
Source: Reproduced from The Real State of America Atlas by
Cynthia Enloe and
Joni Seager, Penguin and University of California Press, 2011 ©
Copyright www.myriadeditions.com
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