April 11 is Equal Pay Day. The second Tuesday of April is recognized as the approximate date that the workplace begins compensating women for the year in comparison to men who begin earning on January 1. Its purpose is to bring attention to estimates that, on average, women earn 79% of what men do for similar work. This is an improvement over the previous year’s 77%. Younger women are doing better percentage-wise: they are paid 93% of what men are. That’s progress, or it could be that the pay gap is smaller at the lower end of the scale, where the younger workers beginning their career paths presumably are.
President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963.
