Women deserve equal pay, Idaho needs to catch up
Sadly Idaho is ranked 51st out of the 50 states and Washington D.C. when comparing median incomes for women, at just $21,908 in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. To dig our hole even deeper, $21,908 was only a $600 increase to what the median income for women in Idaho was in 2012.
This is pathetic. I’m astonished and disgusted that the topic of equal pay is an issue people are still fighting over. The argument for equal pay among men and women — or just equality between the sexes in general — should be obvious. It should be something we all unanimously agree upon.
But of course, ignorant people still exist, and they make the same, uninformed arguments over and over again that others side with because it keeps them comfortable in their version of the world. Idaho is notorious for this.
The worst part of all of this is that Idahoans don’t even seem upset about the news. This could be because they aren’t aware of it, or worse, they just don’t care. However, every Idahoan should be concerned about this news, because it means several things and none of them are positive.
For one, Idahoans should at least be worried about our general trend of annual incomes for both genders, because the men’s median income is extremely low on the list as well. However, it is still higher up than what Idahoan women are earning, and that’s alarming.
The reasons for this statistic could be due to a number of different causes.
For the U.S. in general, women are paid about 77 cents for every dollar a man earns doing the same job, according to the White House. This statistic means that Idahoan women are paid less for doing the same amount of work men do, which would do wonders to Idaho’s already sinking reputation.
Some of you may be thinking a potential reason behind the statistic is the fact that there are a lot of women in Idaho who choose to be a homemaker, which is a perfectly respectable decision. However, the survey only counted women who earned some sort of income, so stay-at-home-moms were not included in the data. There is no way to excuse that women are paid less than men in Idaho.
A big concern for schools in our state is doing our best to keep our college graduates in Idaho. I can attest, as a female college student in Idaho, that women are not going to want work here after seeing this statistic. It’s simply discouraging, and if Idaho doesn’t clean up its act, women will go work in higher-paying states.
I’m disappointed Idaho seems to be so willingly ignorant of an issue as enormous as this to earn such a pathetically low ranking on the list.
Women don’t deserve to be paid less than men for doing the same amount of work. Women don’t deserve to miss out on jobs when they are equally as qualified as men. In a logical world, that should be the end of it.
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected]