A person’s annual pay shouldn’t be set based off of their sex/gender. Equal Pay day occurred this past Tuesday, April 4, highlighting a problem many women across our nation face, wage gaps.
According to the AAUW website, “In 2015, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 80 percent of what men were paid, a gap of 20 percent.” New Hampshire is no exception. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families website /, “Women in New Hampshire are paid 76 cents for every dollar paid to men.” This then means women in New Hampshire working full-time on average are making 24 percent less than what their male co-workers earn.
Referring back to the AAUW website,data on Median Annual Earning and Earning Ratio for Full-Time, Year-Round Workers, by State and Gender for 2015 New Hampshire ranked 38 out of all the states including the District of Columbia, having a higher wage gap than the national median. According to their median data, NH men made just over $55 grand a year while NH women made under $45 grand a year. Many employers claim to be equal opportunity yet aren’t always offering equal pay. Women in general make less than men but this is even more so true for those women among minority groups.
Tim Smith / Photo Editor
A person should be hired based off of their qualifications and what they bring to the table as a potential employee. A woman isn’t entitled to make the same amount as her male co-worker if he has a doctorate and she’s fresh out of college with just a BA in hand and vice versa for a man. However, if they’re both applying for the same job with the same qualifications then they should be paid equally. We at The Equinox just wants to emphasize that qualification has nothing to do with sex, and annual pay shouldn’t be set based off of that. A person’s ethnicity or sex/gender shouldn’t give them a leg up when applying for jobs.
While some employers offer equal employment to all applicants, the wording on job applications may leave some feeling otherwise. For example, on some job applications under the section for race, often times it will group ethnicities all under the same race. This restricts those individuals and groups them together as being all part of the same group, rather than identifying them for coming from the unique culture they actually make up. Honestly, race shouldn’t even be a relevant question to job applications. Race or ethnicity has nothing to do with job performance.
People, especially women, should be able to formulate a general gage of their worth and how they can benefit the company when applying for a job. Also, there’s more to it than just salary alone. Benefits and insurance should also be taken into account. No one should have to settle for anything less than they feel they are worth. It’s not right to settle and let an employer take advantage of you. However, we at The Equinox also feel it’s equally important to have valid reasons to back up why you feel you deserve to earn that number in the first place. We feel students should know how to appropriately and effectively negotiate their salaries and annual pay when the question comes up during job interviews.
There are resources out there that are available online where you can compare annual salaries between similar jobs and career fields. It would be a good idea to research ahead of time so you know what to expect. If you’re a woman and you’re offered less than what appears to be the median pay than you especially should negotiate to get a fair salary.
