Dear Future President of the United States of America,

America is facing many issues today. Some are big, and some are small, but I believe one of our greatest problems is the wage gap between men and women. As a hardworking young women, I believe that I, and all other hardworking women, have the right to earn the same amount of pay as a man does. According to Fortune magazine, “the average woman will make $430,480 less than her male counterpart over the course of 40 years of work.” This gap is completely unacceptable and ethically immoral in all shapes and forms. People performing the same job deserve equal pay for their work. No man should receive an extra 23 cents for every dollar a woman earns just because he happens to be male. America is meant to be free. America is meant to be a place where we can grow and accomplish great things; but with a wage gap this large, I fear that America is not as opportunity filled as it claims to be.

In 1963 president John F. Kennedy passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which aimed at abolishing the wage gap based on sex in America. That labor law was passed 53 years ago, and yet here we are in 2016 with little to no change in something that is still an issue today. As the president, you are our commander in chief. You are one of the most influential people in the world. You are one of the greatest role models for young kids, teenagers, and even adults. With so many people watching you, don’t you think that having unequal laws about pay is contradictory to what America stands for today? Inequality, whether pay or otherwise, is highly dated and has no place in a free, progressive country like America. I want my value as a woman to be just as high of that of a man. I want to perform a job to the best of my ability and get the pay that I deserve. I want equality between men and women, and you are the person who can create that.

As proposed by the National Women’s Law Center (WNLC), to shrink the wage gap, “we can--lift up the salaries of women in low wage jobs, making it easier for women to enter high paying careers.” This is just one of the many actions that could be taken to lower, and eventually abolish, the gender wage gap. The Center for American Progress has many suggestions as to what can be done to reduce the gap. A few of those ideas are to: raise the minimum wage, support fair scheduling practices for women with unpredictable schedules, pass paid sick day legislation and more. With these suggestions and an abundance of others that can be found, you, as the president, have the power to take action and employ one of these methods to make the gender wage gap a thing of the past. Equal pay is a non negotiable right and needs to be treated as a high priority in America today.

Respectfully,

Nivi Shaham