Today is Equal Pay Day in Colorado. April 17th marks the day a woman’s annual earnings catch up to what men earned in 2011. Nationally women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. And in Colorado, that pay gap stretches to 79 cents.
Erin Bennett, the Director of the Colorado advocacy group 9-to-5.
“We also see that women and people of color overwhelmingly dominate underpaid and undervalued industries where wages are low and benefits are almost non-existent. And I think that contributes to the pay gap as well," Bennett says.
Bennett says the income inequality is even more noticeable for women of color in Colorado. African American women make 61 cents and Latinas makes 53 cents compared to their white male counterparts.
Bennett says since the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, the wage gap has closed by about a half of penny each year.
The Colorado State Equal Pay Gap Fact Sheet - National Women's Law Center.
