By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 10 years ago

Chart of the Day: The pay gap narrows by one whole percentage point

Readers, I am forced to humbly apologize to the Senate Republicans. Just this morning, I blamed them for, yet again, blocking legislation to address pay discrimination. But it turns out they might be on to something. According to latest data from the Census Bureau, even without the help of the Paycheck Fairness Act, the gender pay gap narrowed last year from 77 cents to the dollar to…drumroll please!…78 cents!

paygap

I know. Game-changer, right? I mean, sure, it may not be statistically significant, and yes, progress in closing the gender wage gap has been stalled for about a decade now. But hey! Last year the gap actually widened, so I think this calls for a celebration! Drinks all around. We’ll pick up the tab–78 percent of it at least.

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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