While education leads to significant increases in wages for all workers, increases in men’s salaries still outpace increases for women’s salaries at every level, according to a census report released yesterday as reported in the Washington Post. The report, which was the first to measure the benefits of additional schooling on wages, concludes that this gap in earnings has increased dramatically in recent years with women’s wages still lagging behind men’s wages at every level of education. “It’s been a decade of remarkable progress in reducing poverty rates and increasing income “but it’s not led to dramatic catching up of closing the gap,” said Roderick Harrison, an analyst with the Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Similar findings of an increase in the wage gap were detailed in a study released in January by the General Accounting Office of the US Congress that showed a widening of the wage gap over the past five years in ten major industries. At the time of that study’s release, Representatives John D. Dingell (D-MI) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) urged ratification of the United Nations’ Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as a way to ensure greater protections for pay equity between men and women.
