Grade 8
Informational, PersuasiveWritingPeople wait in long lines for coffee before rushing to work in buses, cars, and by foot. Little do they know, a problem that affects more than half of them lies within the everyday workplace. Pay inequality between men and women, commonly known as the wage gap, has attracted a lot of attention recently, even though it has been a worldwide problem for centuries.
“Oh,” you may say, “I know the wage gap! It’s gone in the U.S. now, right?” It is nowhere close to gone. The wage gap has only improved a tiny bit since more attention was pulled to it, but that was really only for white women. Wages are as low as twelve dollars an hour for women of color and fourteen dollars an hour for most men of color, while the white men make an average of twenty-one dollars per hour. This is obviously not fair, what’s worse, this is a worldwide problem.
Business Insider reports, “Between 2011 and 2014, a woman earned $76 for every $100 that a man was paid, according to the World Bank.” This is just the average for thirty countries, the worst being South Korea, where women are paid 36.6% less than men, or sixty-three cents to one dollar, and the best being New Zealand with a 5.6% difference between men and women. “There’s no country in the world where women earn more than men.”
After interviewing multiple people about their personal opinions on the wage gap, it is very easy to see who is the most passionate about the wage gap.“[The wage gap is] really upsetting…It makes it hard to live in San Francisco, where everything is really expensive,” said a female teacher at Everett Middle School. “I feel at risk of being at the lower end of the paycheck. I have to check to make sure it’s fair.” As a woman of color, she is one of the biggest victims of pay inequality, and this actually affects how she lives her life.
On the other hand, a white male teacher has said that it’s hard for him to relate to victims of the wage gap, especially women of color, because he benefits from the system.
Now that you know about the wage gap, you can take action to stop this inequality. Just because it has been a problem since women became able to work doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way. Years of racism and sexism can be stopped if people protest it. How would you feel if your sister or mother was inhibited by pay inequality?
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