Dear Future President,

“Imagine you’re a little girl. You’re growing up. You practice as hard as you can, with girls, with boys. You have a dream. You fight, you work, you sacrifice to get to this stage. You work as hard as anyone you know. And then you get to this stage, and you’re told you’re not the same as a boy. Almost as good, but not quite the same. Think how devastating and demoralizing that could be.” (Venus Williams, 2005). Women are paid 20% less than men on the same work. At the rate that we are trying to fix this problem it won’t be until 2059 that women are paid the same amount as men. What does that tell me? Am I worth less because of my gender? If not why am I treated so? Many women face this problem today, and many will face it in the future.

Gender inequality in pay is taking away the well earned money from half the workforce. As a man how will you fix this problem? What makes you think you can fix this problem? Many wage gap deniers say it’s because they stay at home and “opt” out but what about the engineers? What about the scientists? Another problem is that it is worse for colored women, on average a black women would earn 63% of what their male counterparts earned. Latinas would earn 54%. You Mr. Trump have been known for having a prejudice against colored people. You have also been known for disrespecting women. How will you fix this problem when you have already made your views clear on this? That women are worth for nothing except looking pretty. Before you tell me I'm wrong this point of view of yours lead to the next problem. Employers hiring women in fields that are classified as a “male's area”are declined by 57%. To make matters worse if a man chooses to go into a field of work classified as a “female's field” their wages go up.

A solution to this problem is to raise the minimum wage. This will help with the wage gap because it will help hard working women support their families. Instead of the federal minimum wage of $7.25 we could change it to $10.20. Not only will this solution help the inequality in pay but also help families in the U.S. earn more for their families. Another solution to this problem is to raise the tipping percent. Women make up ⅔ of tipped workers and are 70% of food servers and bartenders. The minimal wage for tips would go up to 70%. The last fix to this problem will be to support pay transparency. Without knowing what our male coworkers earn how will we know if there’s a problem? The Paycheck Fairness Act it will give women better tools to address this issue.

So all in all, America has the inequality in pay that we need to fix by either raising the minimum wage, raising the tipping wage, and to allow pay transparency. These solutions would solve the problem before the women in the future have to face the inequality. This is important because we are worth equal amounts as men, we work hard and deserve to be paid how much we have earned. Please take this into account or it won’t be until 2059 that women will be paid equally, you could change my opinion of you Mr. Trump.

Sincerely,

Ivonne