A case of wage rage

By Mary Helen Gillespie, 12/19/2005 |  Talk about the wage gap

Boy, have I got a wicked case of wage rage. And I hope by the time you finish reading this, you will too.

This angst bubbled up after reading Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men - And What They Can Do About It. Written by economist Evelyn Murphy with journalist E.J. Graff, this book is the culmination of six years of research by Murphy, the former Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts.

The arguments here hit home personally and professionally. Let's outline them first.

Basically, it focuses on gender-based wage discrimination, or the wage gap that is embedded in the American workplace. For every dollar earned by a working male, a working female will earn 77 cents. The gap: 23 cents. Doesn't even add up to two dimes and one nickel. Until you do the math, and realize that over the career of a working female, this adds up to thousands and thousands of dollars less than what her male equal in the workplace will earn. The gap widens when that working female is a working single mother and/or of African-American descent and even wider if Latina.

• A woman who graduated from high school last spring will make $700,000 less over the course of her working career than the man who graduated alongside her with the same high school diploma.
• A woman who graduated from college last spring with a four-year degree will make $1.2 million less than a man with the same degree.
• A woman who graduated from law school, medical school, or earned an MBA, will make $2 million less than her male classmate.

Got the fever? Forget the blue states. Are you thinking pink? Seeing red?

Because if you are a working woman in America, this represents a gross economic and social injustice. It simply is not fair. If you are a man who works, sure, it means your female colleagues have a right to rant. But think about it from the home front. If you are married, this is a huge chunk of change not coming into the family bank accounts. If you have daughters, granddaughters, nieces, or female cousins, this is money that the next generation will never own - unless the gap is closed.

Many of the men I know - family, friends, colleagues - are busting their chops, along with their spouses or exes, to save enough money to put their children through a four-year college program. It is simply assumed these kids, boys and girls, are going to a post-secondary institution of higher learning. The kids know it, too. Most of them have heard this particular message upon first exiting the womb.

So let's look at this from a return on investment perspective. Let's say you've got a son and a daughter, Winston and Clementine. We'll make them twins to eliminate inflation, etc. You shell out, say, up to $35K per year for four years times two to educate both your kids. That's roughly $140,000 each for a total of $280,000. They graduate, and ta-da, land their first "real" jobs.

Winnie and Clemmie may start at the same salary. But Junior is going to earn $1.2 million more than his sister over their working careers. And that is true whether he cruises through with gentlemen's C grades and she is on the honors list for all four years, and regardless of any time away from the workplace she may take to raise your adorable grandchildren, Martha and Tessie.

Again, it just ain't fair.

Which brings up my personal rant. I have an MBA. My husband does not. When I saw that $2 million figure, I gasped. And when I told him, he gulped: "Two flipping million?" Yes, dear. That's what is not going to our retirement funds, to the travel budget, to pay off debt including the student loan for the flipping MBA in the first place, the home equity loan for the new addition and other financial concerns. So as I cut up another credit card over the kitchen garbage can, the mantra is: "What am I worth? And to whom?"

Ahh, because now it gets right down and dirty. See, once the wage gap hits home, it bounces back to the workplace, which is where Murphy sees the solution. In an interview, she told me that with the right resources in place - from CEOs to individual workers to public advocacy - an effective strategy can eliminate the U.S. wage gap within a decade.

"What I know works is the concept of fairness, especially to men. Everybody wants to believe that he or she is fair," says Murphy, who heads The WAGE Project, a new not-for-profit organization that sprouted from the book and its research. CEOs and other leaders must admit there is probably an inequity in their pay scales, perform a gender wage analysis, adjust pay scales, and then put controls in place to monitor the effectiveness of the program.

"It's about loyalty," Murphy says. "Employers want their world-class employees to stay. This is the kind of leadership you stand up for. If you as a CEO can say 'If I am not being fair, then let's fix it,' well, fixing it is eventually going to be reflected in higher stock prices and shareholder value." That's because the experienced, highly skilled female workers will be more likely to stay with the organization instead of walking away in anger or, worse, staying on but working less productively for fear that speaking up about their paychecks will marginalize them, or cost them their jobs.

"There's no excuse not to do that," Murphy says simply. I concur.

To learn more about Murphy's mission and additional solutions, including the "wage club" concept, visit The WAGE Project website. Better yet, buy the book. It would make a great holiday gift for every woman - and fella - on your shopping list.

Mary Helen Gillespie is president of Gillespie Interactive, a strategic management consulting firm. E-mail Savvy Manager thoughts at maryhelen@bostonworks.com.