Tag Archives: pay wage

Recognizing the Gender Wage Gap

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The gender wage gap is something that lawmakers have tried to address through legislation, such as the Equal Pay Act, however it is still a very prevalent problem in America. Today, a woman earns about 79 cents for every dollar that a man earns. This is clearly unfair and shows that gender discrimination is still impacting individuals despite the progress and the attempts to close this wage gap. Women of color specifically earn the least when compared to the wages of men and white women. This may be due to the intersectionality of the identities of women of color (including gender and race), further proving that race and gender are factors that unfairly impact earnings. For example, Hispanic women earn only 55% of the earnings of men. This large gender wage gap is a clear example of unequal treatment based on gender in today’s society. It has been predicted that the gender wage gap will hopefully be closed by 2059. While this is great, the current wage gap (as shown in the following bar charts) is something that is actively impacting every woman and marginalized identity group right now without a quick fix to refocus professional earnings on talent rather than gender.

citations: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/these-5-charts-show-how-big-the-pay-gap-is-between-men-and-women/

Food Insecurity- Issue of Equity

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As a Sociology major, looking at the ways in which different social justice issues affect individuals isn’t new to me. However, what is new to me is looking at these issues through a mathematical lens. The issue of food insecurity and hunger is not just an issue surrounding food, but an issue surrounding equity. Consider the following chart;

The information on this chart shows that the rate of White college students facing food insecurity is 36%, which is quite high. However, other demographics have even higher percentages. Hispanic college students food insecurity rate is 47%, Black is college students rate is 54% and Indigenous college students rate is 60%. This data shows that food insecurity is an issue of racial equality and equity.

One of the main contributing factors to the difference of food insecurity among demographics is the difference in pay wages. Consider another chart below;

This chart displays that no matter the level of education, White employees will be paid more than Black and Hispanic workers. When an individual is paid more, they have more access to purchase food and avoid food insecurity. Hence, White workers being paid more definitely contributes to White individuals having the lowest rate of food insecurity among college students, compared to Black, Indigenous and Hispanic college students.

Lastly, as we have previously discussed, healthier food options are more expensive than unhealthy food options, such as fast food chains (McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, etc). With this in mind, families of lower income are going to be more likely to eat at fast food restaurants given the low prices. Consider this last data set;

This data shows that the rate of obesity among White students is only 29.3% while it is 35.9% among Black children and 38.2% among Hispanic children. This makes sense given everything that has been discussed thus far in this blog. Eating cheap fast food more often will result in higher obesity rates. The way that poverty can have an affect on so many other factors such as physical and mental health displays how capitalistic our society truly is.