Equal Pay - Why it Matters by

Equal Pay - The Issue

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-28 14:41:40 UTC

According to Blau and Kahn (2016) in 2010 on average a woman would earn 82.1% of what a man would earn working the same job with the same education, experience, race/ethnicity, and living in the same region and metropolitan area. According to the same study women earned only 71.1% of what men did in 1980, but by 1989 pay had reached levels similar to those of 2010. The National Women's Law Center translated these pay differences into years of work. That is how many years of work would it take for a woman to earn as much as a man would earn over 40 years of work. The numbers are quite shocking, but the reality is likely worse because the NWLC fact sheet doesn't take into account expenditures or investments of any kind.

Blau, Francine D.; Kahn, Lawrence M. (2016). The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations, IZA Discussion Papers, No. 9656, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn

Understanding the Math

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-28 14:48:34 UTC

First of all it is obviously better to be paid more. If you had a choice of working for $18/hour or for $20/hour in the same job (that's 80%), you wouldn't have think before picking the higher wage. But what does that $2/hour difference really amount to?

-In one forty hour work week that's $80 dollars.
-In one year that's around $4,000.

While these are relatively small amounts of money they make a difference. If two people spend the same amount of money in a year the person who earns $2/hour more has an extra $4,000 dollars saved away in a bank account, or invested.

Questions -
1. If you were working and suddenly started to earn $80 more each week, how would you use that money?

2. Using the compound interest formula (see below) how much would the $4,000 extra the man earned be worth if he immediately invested the full amount into an account earning 0.8% annual interest compounded quarterly and left it there for 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? <$4332, $4693, $5083>

A Brief History of Equal Pay

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-30 14:26:08 UTC

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 required employers to give equal pay for equal work. This law came about in no small part due to the large numbers of women who worked in factories during World War II. However, despite attempts to pass an anti-wage discrimination law, such as the Women's Equal Pay Act of 1945 which failed to pass, no significant progress had been made on the subject of equal pay. In 1960 women still earned less than two thirds of what men did for their work. However, in spite of the Equal Pay Act, and several laws that followed it, in 2016 women were earning just 82 cents to the dollar according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the Classroom

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-30 14:42:09 UTC

Standard - CC.2.1.HS.F.1
Apply and extend the properties of exponents to solve problems with rational exponents

Standard - CC.2.2.HS.C.5
Construct and compare linear, quadratic and exponential models to solve problems.

Standard - CC.2.2.HS.C.6
Interpret functions in terms of the situation they model.

-Equal pay doesn't start out as an exponential problem. Month by month it's a linear problem with consistent additions and subtractions of steady amounts of cash based on income and expenses. However when students are pushed to consider what will happen with surpluses and deficits they will quickly find themselves in the exponential worlds of interest, investment, and debt.
-This topic provides many avenues to explore the real world implications of exponential functions and to establish how they differ from linear functions.

Unit Informaiton

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-30 15:01:38 UTC

Unit - Exponential Function: Real World Applications

Grade Level - High School Algebra II

Goals -
1) Students will understand how to calculate compound interest.

2) Students will explore the impact of differences in income on long term economics.

3) Students will explore the effects of of wage discrimination.

Lesson Explanation: In this lesson students will learn about wage discrimination and apply what they have learned regarding exponential functions to explore the long term implications of wage gaps.

Additional Note:
As I was researching the topic of unequal pay I was constantly looking out for any articles that might address the long term impacts of unequal pay while considering expenditures and/or interest earned/paid on surpluses/deficits. I was however unable to find any such studies in spite of several explicit searches. I'm not sure whether this is due to the nature of my queries, the difficulties involved in calculating such information, or simply a lack of studies on this topic.

Standard - CC.1.2.9-10.L

Read and comprehend literary non-fiction and informational text on grade level, reading independently and proficiently.

The articles provided are all examples of non-fiction, informational text.

Standard - CC.1.3.9-10.B

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences and conclusions based on an author’s explicit assumptions and beliefs about a subject.

This unit would be a great opportunity to have students read up on equal pay issues and have an informed and respectful classroom discussion. The best form of this discussion will include explicit textual evidence.

Standard - CC.1.4.9-10.I

Distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims; develop claim(s) fairly, supplying evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns.

The aforementioned discussion directly addresses this standard as well.

Standard - CC.1.5.9-10.D

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning; ensure that the presentation is appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.

Again a discussion or even short individual presentations on this issue match this objective.

A Fun Mathematically Musical Video

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-30 20:37:53 UTC

This song is from the Pajama Game, a musical which my high school preformed during my senior year. The musical tells the story of a labor dispute between a company and its employees' union over pay. In this number the workers talk about what the small pay increase (7 1/2 cents) that they are asking for will impact them over the years. It's also an ear-worm so the students should at the very least remember this song when finals come round

A Poem on Equal Pay

david_m_wheel — 2018-06-30 21:01:41 UTC

Here's a poem written by a 14 year old on the subject of equal pay. The information that it presents is similar to the other sources, but we're in the business of education it's practically in our job description to repeat ourselves. This is also the potential starting point to give students the opportunity to generate their own poems or other media on the subject of equal pay.