Government officials and advocacy groups came together Tuesday to recognize Equal Pay Day and raise awareness for Wisconsin's gender wage gap.
Equal Pay Day is an annual event that marks how much longer women must work to earn as much as men did in the previous year. For example, women working from January 2007 through April 22 make as much on average as men made from January through December 2007.
According to a report by The Center on Wisconsin Strategy, Wisconsin women earned 22 percent less than men in 2006.
Women make up half of the graduates from Wisconsin colleges and universities but earn less than men on average, according to a statement from the Wisconsin Women's Council.
There is a 10 percent wage gap that affects women with bachelor's degrees, but the same gap affects women with higher degrees and even tenured faculty members at universities, according to Christine Lidbury, executive director of WWC.
The yawning wage gap reflects the persistent gender discrimination that we all would like to think doesn't exist in the year 2008
