The Workplace Gender Bender

Via Yggy, new evidence shows that the pay gap between men and women occurs immediately out of college.

A woman graduating with a bachelor’s degree last year earned a median starting salary of $36,451. For a man, it was $44,159. When you calculate a lifetime of percentage raises and compound interest, that nearly $8,000 difference is staggering.
As demoralizing as the findings of “Gender and College Recruiting” might be for this year’s female grads, its implications for future generations of women in the workplace are downright alarming. NACE’s analysis, which painstakingly isolates a systematic gender effect by taking into account the differential salary levels among majors and then comparing salaries within the same major, gives lie to the conventional wisdom that paycheck parity will somehow materialize for women with the mere passage of time.

And let's keep in mind this is for college graduates, not for dangerous blue collar jobs like construction or meat packing or industrial fishing jobs where men dominate.  A woman immediately finds herself earning 82.5 cents for every dollar a man earns even with a college degree in the same field.  But even with jobs where women outearn men, the gap is still massive.

For minority women, the gap is always far, far larger to boot.  The gap has existed for decades, but Republicans always say there's no reason to legislate trying to close it.  I'm sure it'll happen any day now.