Women's Equal Pay Day: Shedding Light on Wage Discrimination

Many companies may choose to not recognize this, but gender wage gap and pay disparities exist years after the Equal Pay Act was signed. Women’s Equal Pay Day raises awareness for gender-based pay discrimination and reinforces the idea that every worker deserves to receive equal pay.

Honoring Women’s Equal Pay Day

For close to three decades, Women’s Equal Pay Day has raised awareness of the wage gap between men and women. This year, Equal Pay Day lands on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. Varying from year to year, this day symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Based on the latest U.S. Census, the average woman is paid about 84% for full-time workers and 77% for all workers (including part-time and seasonal) compared to their male counterparts. This means women earn about 82 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Inclusion Survey

In Paradigm’s Inclusion Survey — a tool designed to help organizations understand how people from different backgrounds and identities experience organizational culture — we looked at how people perceive the fairness of their pay compared to others in their organization. Participants were asked the following: “To what extent do you feel that your total compensation is fair, relative to similar roles at your company?”

Statistics on Salary History

When we compared our findings from 2022 to 2023, we found a few small changes in how fair different demographics feel their pay is. Most notably, while most women felt slightly less favorably in 2023, there was an increase for women of color.

• A lower proportion of women responded favorably: a one-point drop (43% to 42%)

• A lower proportion of White men responded favorably: a one-point drop (53% to 52%)

• A higher proportion of women of color responded favorably: a 2-point increase (38% to 40%)

The survey reveals that people’s perception of how they are paid mirrors external findings of actual pay discrimination. So how can your organization ensure wage gaps don’t re-merge and that you’re committed to providing equitable pay? It starts with developing and communicating a comprehensive compensation strategy.

Diversity and Inclusion Training with Paradigm

Check out our checklist for Four Steps to Building an Equitable Compensation Strategy to help you regularly audit your pay processes, promote pay equity, and start positively changing your employees’ perception of fair pay.

Note: Since the pay gap varies significantly between different communities, especially for women of color — LGBTQIA+, Black Women, Mothers, Latinas, Native Women, AANHPI — you can find additional equal pay dates for 2023 here.