Yes, Wage discrimination is still real. A person would think that at this time in America, women would be treated as equal individuals to men socially and economically. American women who work full-time, year-round are only paid 78 cents for every dollar that is paid to their male counterparts — which means it's important to keep striving for new legislation and laws that would make the workplace 100% fair for the hardworking women (NWLC). It is unjustified for women to receive less pay than men when they are performing the same tasks because women make up a large percentage of the work force. they complete their job assignments just as well as their male counterparts, and they receive at least the same, if not more, education than their male coworkers.

Women should get equal pay for equal work because they make up a vast percentage of the work force. Women are accounted for 51.5 percent of all workers in the high-paying management and professional occupations. Over 65 million women are employed and makeup almost 47% of the total labor force. In fact, 60% of the women with children under the age of one are working either full or part-time, but are still getting paid on average 22 cents less than every dollar a man makes. Today, women are even found in technical and administrative support positions, with 73% of working women employed in white collar jobs (Almeida). If on average, more women are slowly being hired due to their accomplishments, more than their male counterparts, their roles should be important enough to receive the equal pay that they deserve. In specific, single-mothers are surprisingly in a vast percentage of the workforce and their families rely on the one income that the working mother makes. If their wage is not even tied with the woman’s male co-workers, then how is the mother suppose to support her children? Equal pay for equal work needs to happen or else women are going to fall behind in their demanding lifestyles, especially when their presence helps maintain a stable working environment.

Women should receive equal pay for their equal work because they are performing the same tasks just as well as their male counterparts. A valid example is Lisa Su, who recently became the new CEO of a computer chip company called Advanced Micro Devices Inc., but unfortunately, she is making less than the male CEO that was there before her. The company’s excuse for the difference in salary is that Su isn’t new to the company, rather just got promoted. But, Su is not the only female CEO to get less than the man she replaced. GM CEO Mary Barra, the first woman to be CEO of a global car company, was given a pay that was less than half of what was paid to the man before her for her first year and less than he made as an outside adviser. Less than half. In the same industry as Su, Marissa Mayer, the female CEO of Yahoo!, was paid less than an executive below her who was fired (Covert). Even though they are performing the same act as the people before them, these powerful women gets paid less, showing how unjust the system really is. The companies do not even have legitimate reasons to do so, rather it is a simple act of gender discrimination. People need to become aware of these everyday issues, rather than ignoring them and waiting a few more years for it to possibly change to equality because it won’t change until people fight for the Paycheck Fairness Act and/or other equal pay for equal work acts that will eventually give the hardworking women the same treatment that they deserve.

Women should receive equal pay for the same action because they receive the same amount of education as their male counterparts. New research from Wells Fargo shows that college-educated millennial men make $20,000 more per year than women with the same education level. The median annual income for millennial men was $83,000, while women made only $63,000 (Alter). If women have the same education then they are capable of the same pay as a man. It’s as simple as that. Women’s college enrollment has increased by more than 35% between 1976 and 1996, and now exceeds that of men. Women have been earning more bachelor’s degrees than men since 1982 and more master’s degrees since 1981. More women than men entered law school in 2000, and the proportion of women to men in medical school has increased from 5.8% in 1960 to 45.7% in 2001 (Almeida). So if women are beginning to exceed men in an educational standpoint, then shouldn’t that correlate with how capable they are of handling a job? And if they are capable of handling the job, shouldn’t they be paid at least the same as the men who are at the same intelligence level? Women deserve the right to have equal pay if their standpoints in universities prove their ability to work and understand economic situations.
But of course, a vast majority have insisted that while they support equal pay for equal work, trying to make that happen would create increased civil lawsuits. They also argue that the Paycheck Fairness act is unnecessary because discrimination based on gender is already illegal. But as the statistics show, women are still being discriminated in their workplace and not being given the same salaries or wages as their male counterparts.
Overall, it is completely obscure and unjust that a person would think to not give women equal pay for the same task because they are in the workforce just as much as men, they are doing the exact thing just as well or have the same occupation, and they receive the exact same amount of education. Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labor rights that allows for everyone to be treated with the same respect. More than 2000 years ago Plato said, “If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.” Now that women are taught the same things as men and do the same work, isn’t it about time that they were paid the same wage? People should become aware of the tragedy that is gender discrimination and people of the workforce, especially the women, should fight for their right to be treated equally in their workplaces, or else there will never be a true balance of rights in America.