On Sunday June 7, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won their fourth World Cup Championship, and their second in a row. However, there has been a bigger story sweeping the headlines, the team’s call for equal pay.

The US Women’s National Team (USWNT) filed a gender discrimination lawsuit, before the tournament, demanding equal pay to that of their male counterparts. While a second straight World Cup victory lent support to the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s fight for equal pay, demonstrated by the chants of “Equal Pay!” serenading the players after they won, their fight continues.

This pay disparity is large. From 2013 to 2016, a woman who played and won 20 non-tournament soccer games could earn at most $99,000, according to their lawsuit. For men, the maximum pay was $263,320. While U.S. Soccer has attributed the pay gap to separate labor agreements and revenue reasons, a recent Wall Street Journal report found that women’s games had generated $50.8 million for U.S. Soccer from 2016 to 2018, compared to $49.9 million for the men over the same period. The Boston Globe reports, “The US Women’s soccer team wins more championships, sells more jerseys, and generates more revenue than the men’s squad”, why then are they not paid equitably?

One of the Commission’s focus of work is Pay Equity, and we urge the U.S Soccer Federation to be on the right side of history and work toward equal pay.

NBC4 featured the Columbus Women’s Commission’s work on addressing pay equity.   Listen to Commissioner Barb Smoot discuss the issue or pay equity in light of the USWNT’s fight: HERE

Find out how you can stay engaged in the USWNT’s fight for pay equity: HERE

Since 2015, the number of young single mothers in the work force has climbed about four percentage points, driven by those without college degrees, according to a New York Times analysis of Current Population Survey data. The reason?

Data shows that at the local level, new policies like paid leave, Medicaid expansion and minimum wage increases have made it more accessible for single mothers to work.

We stay committed to supporting policies that support women’s ability to provide for herself and her family. Working together we can create a workplace where every woman has the ability to work without barriers.

Read more HERE.

“Our employees are the county’s most valuable asset. They work hard every day to make life better for our neighbors and they deserve fair wages in return,” said Board of Commissioners President Marilyn Brown.

Earlier this month, the Franklin County Commissioners voted unanimously to increase the lowest paid wage to county employees to a minimum of $15 per hour.  While we know that for women to achieve economic self-sufficiency, and more importantly security in Columbus, they need to be earning over $26 per hour, this increase is a step in the right direction. The move is one of the first steps taken under the County Commissioners’ new Rise Together poverty initiative.

We thank the bold leadership of the Franklin County Commissioners and their commitment to fair wages.

Pew Research Center has released new research finding that women are approaching a milestone in gender parity. The found that 2019 will be the first year in which women will be the majority of the college-educated labor force in the U.S.

This is significant for women particularly in part to the high correlation between educational attainment and income. It is also important to note that while women have only recently reached parity with men in the college-educated workforce, they have been a majority of college-educated adults for more than a decade. One important factor for why it has taken more than 10 years for women to reach parity in the college-educated workforce is that college-educated women are less likely than their male counterparts to be in the labor force.

And Pew Research also notes that although women are at parity with men in the overall college-educated labor force, they lag significantly behind in many specific occupations. For example, women account for only 25% of college-educated workers in computer occupations and 15% of college-educated workers in engineering occupations. In some other occupations, such as office and administrative support and health care practitioners and technicians, women represent the majority of college-educated workers.

Read more HERE.