Dear Future President,

I am writing to you about a very important issue: the wage gap in the workplace. Women earn less than men for performing the same jobs and they don’t deserve it. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a college educated woman could lose up to $800,000 by the time she is fifty-nine due to the gender wage gap. This means that a single woman could earn $800,000 more to raise her children, or to save up for retirement.

In the United States there are a lot of women and families in poverty. According to the National Women’s Law Center, “Data on Poverty and Income,” "More than one in eight women and more than one in three single-mother families are poor". According to the Institute For Women’s Policy Research “How Equal Pay for Working Women would Reduce Poverty and Grow the American Economy,” poverty in families with a working woman would be 50% less than what it is now if there was equal pay. Half of the people who are now living in poverty would be given a better life, if only there was equal pay.

My mother is the CFO of a non-profit. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2012," October 2013, female CEOs and directors earn about 42% less than what their male counterparts make. When confirming this with my mother she said, "That’s about right." When I asked her why she didn’t do anything about it she informed me that she wasn’t comfortable asking for a raise.

This issue is so important to me because I want to grow up in a country where women are given the same opportunities as men. Why should young women like me grow up in an environment where it is accepted that women earn less than men for doing the same job? Women invest the same amount of money in their future. Women have to pay the same amount of money to go to college, and they have to pay the same amount of debts when they get out. They have to pay the same amount of money to rent an apartment, and to buy food. If women have to pay the same amount of money to pay for things they need in life, why should they be paid less than men for the doing the same work?

I think that everyone should try to do what they can to do something about the issues they care about. So I’m doing something about this. I am writing to you, asking for you to pass a law against paying men more than women. Why wouldn’t you, when it would help more than a hundred million women living in the U.S., many living in poverty? Why wouldn’t you when it could help their children, their families, and their husbands. It’s likely that the United States of America will not see equal pay in this lifetime. That means that your daughters and granddaughters could grow old without ever earning as much as men. You have the power to do something about it and I hope you do. I look forward to seeing this new policy.

Thank you for listening to my concerns,

Anya M.

Sources:

"Data on Poverty & Income Archives - NWLC." NWLC Data on Poverty Income Issue. National Women's Law Center, 13 Sept. 2016. Web. 05 Nov. 2016.

Hartmann, Heidi, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Hayes, Ph.D. "How Equal Pay for Working Women Would Reduce Poverty and Grow the American Economy." Institute For Women's Policy Research, Jan. 2014. Web. 7 Nov. 2016.

Smilowitz, Ariel. "For U.S. Women, Inequality Takes Many Forms." The Huffington Post.

Stansbury, Anna. "U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013 Report on Women's Earnings - Journalist's Resource." Journalist's Resource. Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, 31 Oct. 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 June 2015. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.