WILLMAR -- The drinks were 77 percent full and the pizza had 23 percent missing at a Willmar Business and Professional Women's gathering Tuesday to observe Equal Pay Day.
The missing portions illustrated the point of the event: Even in 2006, women on average still earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn.
"We have come so far but there's still a big wage gap," said Amy Kelleher, president of the Willmar BPW. "We tend to think we're all equal but in reality it's not the case."
Similar "Unhappy Hours" were held by BPW groups across the United States to raise awareness of the paycheck inequities. The date was picked because it represents the number of additional days women must work in order to catch up with the salaries paid to men in 2005.
Over a working lifetime, this gap costs American women an estimated $523,000 in lost wages -- and the gap persists even among women who are college-educated. The pay inequities also often follows women into retirement in the form of lower pension and Social Security benefits.
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As they sipped green-tinted "money" drinks, the Willmar BPW members mused about women, careers and expectations. There are many complex reasons for the pay gap, said Julie Asmus, an investigator with the Willmar Police Department.
One of them is the lower value that's often placed on the work that women do, she said. Glass ceilings can limit women's ability to be promoted into higher-paying jobs. Often, the demands of raising children mean that women scale back into part-time work or drop out of the workforce altogether -- and these women then must struggle to regain ground when they eventually go back to work.
"If I quit my job right now, I would never get back to where I am," said Wendy Ulferts, a patient care manager at Rice Memorial Hospital and mother of twins.
The inequities are even deeper for women of color: African-American women on average earn 66 percent of what men do, and Latina women earn 55 cents for every dollar earned by men.
When asked whether girls today are aware that they'll likely have to work longer to make the same amount of money as men, the BPW members chorused, "Nooooo."
Kelleher said it's important to encourage girls to study math and science and consider career options with more potential for high pay.
For Asmus, choosing a nontraditional occupation brought higher entry-level wages. "I didn't have to fight for equal pay. It was there," she said.
