Radio Smart Talk: Women and men pay gap

Radio Smart Talk for Tuesday, April 2:

There is no disputing the fact that men earn more money than women.

However, that may be where the agreement ends.

The statistic most often quoted is that women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. That number was quoted by President Obama in his State-of-the-Union Address when he urged Congress to approve the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The 77 cent number was compiled from the 2010 U.S. Census that compared the median pay of men and women.

At the same time, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research concluded that full-time working women were paid at a rate of 82.2% of what men earned.

The real question is why this gender pay gap exists.

Some have suggested that women choose careers that don’t pay as much as men or that women don’t work as many hours as men because of family obligations.

Still, others say it is flat-out discrimination that men are paid more.

The real question then is are women earning less when working in the same jobs and hours as men?

We’ll explore these questions and others on Tuesday’s Radio Smart Talk.

Appearing on the program will be Maureen Powers, CEO of the YWCA in Lancaster and Dr. Heather Odle-Dusseau, an assistant professor of Management at Gettysburg College.

{mp3remote}http://witf.vo.llnwd.net/o35/smarttalk/radiosmarttalk/RST_April022013.mp3{/mp3remote}