In light of a recent study that shows how little wealth black and Latina women have, we should be rushing to fix pay and wealth disparities. That's especially true given how devastating the recession is for families when underpaid women become the sole breadwinner.
As Latoya Peterson notes for TAP, addressing the pay gap doesn't adequately address the difference in wealth, or assets minus debts, between women of all races and their male counterparts. Still, the pay gap is one of the causes of the almost total lack of wealth experienced by women of color. A bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act that would close some of the loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, which passed the House and is now sitting in the Senate. It would be better if it passed soon, in order to give families some recourse during the recession. Fatima Goss Graves, a vice president of the National Women's Law Center, says the bill is well-placed to move, and a hearing on the act last week was well attended.
The act would make it easier to discover pay disparities and to make claims against the businesses who discriminate them. The more studies published on how poorly women do financially, the more urgent and uncontroversial passing the bill seems.
-- Monica Potts
