Are You Paid What You're Worth?

People are not all the same and the world is not black and white. I think trying to reduce the world down to gender and neglecting ALL other factors is ignorant.

There are so many other factors that play into compensation (i.e. years of experience, education, skill set, work experience etc).

A wise recruiter once told me that the only way to be paid the "market rate" is to change jobs. Do you think he was being self serving? No. Think about it. If you 'settle' into the same job at the same company for a long period of time, you will most likely only receive cost of living adjustments. Even if raises are merit based you're still not going to be at the 'market rate' after a period of time. The only way you will get back up to market is to switch companies and ask the 'going rate'.

So for argument sake, let's say a male is more apt to 'job hop' so he is being paid the 'market rate'. A woman has gotten comfortable in the same old position with the same old company. Should the company bump her because they hired someone else in the department? Maybe that's a poor example but the whole idea neglects that we are not all interchangeable cogs in the machine. We all have different experiences and bring different skill sets.

It just sounds to me like the government is interferring where it doesn't belong while they ignore the bigger issues at hand.

I do not know what everyone in my office makes. I do know that I started my career nearly 9 years ago and started in an administrative position and now am at a senior level. I am proud of what I have done and where I have come.

Yes I am paid what I am worth when you take into consideration all I get beyond wage. That is the problem with statistics that claim women don't make as much as men.

Ask any woman here what it is worth to them to be able to be there when their kids need them. If they are honest it is invaluable. Sure I could make 15 an hour more in public accounting but to be there for my son when he needs me is far more valuable.

Women that are willing to work the hours and demands men are are paid the same. We already have equal pay. If I am allowed to leave when I need to when the guy next to me can't but we are paid the same wage is not equal.

I think I'm paid fairly, but I honestly don't know exactly what my male counterparts are being paid. I know where I fall in my pay grade range, though. I think a driving factor in wage inequality is that women take time off to have children, stay home with kids, and/or limit their educations & careers for kids. Men go into the workforce and typically continue on until they retire, without periods of time out of the workplace. They also tend not to have to make the compromises for their careers that women do. As a result, they earn more money by having more experience or being promotable.

I am used to climb the corporate ladder...I have an undergrad, an MBA, and 20+ years experience in my field. I am compensated fairly. At the same time, I am now in a position where I limit my hours, limit business travel, choose not to relocate, and have little interest or energy to go after the next promotion. Down the road, a lot of men will pass me by on the corporate ladder and in compensation, which is fair if they are willing to do the things that I am not able to offer an employer right now. Women are just as capable as men, but IMO, it is unrealisticfor most of us to think that we can have it all (at the exact same time). Women have to make trade-offs that men do not...it's a harsh reality that is about the choices we make, not about fairness.

I think women sacrificing more (such as pay) to have jobs that work with their families should be taken into account. (It's not.) For every women I know who has the same education as men they work with...they get paid less, because they ask for MORE. More time off, more flexibility, more of a lot of things. Women typically take many more days off, need more insurance, more last minute sick days, get off earlier, etc.I do think there is still a gap, but I don't believe it's that large in reality. If I were working right now (I choose not to) I don't think I would deserve equal pay, given all the things I would be asking for. I might be working the same position, but I would be receiving more and asking more.

For the record, I think most people aren't paid what they are worth.

ETA: You said it exactly, "when we are at work." If a woman is not at work as often as a man, no she does not deserve pay...if she works just as hard WHEN she happens to be there. I'm not saying that a woman who does not expect or ask for these things should be paid less. I was simply talking about the woman who DO. And, even in 2012...most do. At least, any woman I've ever known.

I've actually done a lot of letter writing for wage equity, and the statistics are more dire for women of color; in some areas of our country, Latina women are making 43 cents to the white male dollar.

I know people factor a lot of variables in (flex time, taking maternity leave) but to me these are not reasons to underpay women or to value men more. The fact of the matter is that when we are at work, we are working just as hard as the men around us. If men choose not to take family leave (and many men do), what does that have anything to do with the amount of money women make? What about all of the women who choose not to have a family? Are they still to be penalized simply for having a uterus?

I'll stop there, but I won't accept that a woman is a lesser worker because she's got a pair (of ovaries or boobs, take your pick). We women work very hard for every penny we are paid--and even for the ones we aren't paid.

And yes, I'm underpaid-- of course. Early childhood ed is not a lucrative profession.... even with twenty years experience. Any coincidence that this is a female-dominated profession? hmm....

I want to add O. more thing: if we are operating on the idea that women *should* be paid lesser than men for the considerations it is assumed women need, shouldn't we also then say that men are getting paid more solely because of the support of their women and wives? But women get paid less for the time they are actually at work because they provide that same support? When we make the assumption that men don't need these exact same benefits (flex time, family leave ) we discount the role many fathers would truly love to play in their children's lives, to be there for their families when needed and wanted. It can be argued that paying men significantly more puts a financial burden on men in their relationships that they might not want to have. This is why pay equity is so important-- it gives each family and couple more options if businesses would pay men and women equally for a job well done.

I am. I don't know what people around me make and I wouldn't care if they were females or males, I know for ME and what *I* have done in my career, I'm doing very well. In 6 years I have gotten $55k in raises, and had to forego a raise this year BECAUSE of the way Obama has run the budget. So it's very nice of him to want to try to help people, but he screwed me out of a raise since he can't give people in the Government raises or manage the checkbook of our country..

So while it is a nice gesture on his part, he has screwed it up already for people of every gender, race, profession, etc.

If there's O. way to get more men back in the workplace this is it!

As with most government interventions this will end up hurting the very people it's supposed to help.

JMO.

PS: As a former working professional I very much agree with Jo.

Personally I haven't seen the issue of a woman doing the exact same job as a man and getting paid less. That is wrong. Same hours, same responsibility etc, of course pay should be the same. In reality, as someone said, women more often start to scale back after they've had kids so then we're not comparing apples to apples anymore. In the case where the father stays home so the traditional roles are reversed, that woman should stay on par with male coworkers. But personally I'm kind of overpaid so can't complain...

You know... The class I hated most in school has also been O. of the most useful in everyday life; Logic.

We're going to pay you less, because at some point we may not be paying you at all, or may negotiate your hours, l just DOESN'T make sense. It's faulty logic.

Ditto: we're going to have to pay to train your replacement doesn't fly, when they have to pay to train ALL replacements AND while more women leave for family, more men leave for better companies. The stats are roughly even when looked at side by side instead of in a vacuum. In fact, in some fields men leave 3x more often than women (aka man works 1 year, woman works 3 years).

It's O. nice thing about the military... Everyone knows what everyone makes, pay is on a set scale, and extra needs are factored in (family size, hardship pay, etc.). The only pay bias in the military is that some jobs have fast rank advancement, while others don't. Granted, pay is LOUSY, but at least it's above board.

As my job title states I am an Office Manager. I manage 15-20 paraprofessionals in an office setting with 30-70 clients that have to be served on a daily basis. I cover scheduling, client problems, general running of the office problems, staffing issues, hiring/firing, protocol management, operating protocol management. I can work in every department and have good customer service skills. Do I feel I am paid enough for what I do? No. Any other office where I did as much as I do here and I would be pulling in 20-40K more.

Unfortunately in the industry I work in I am paid well for what I do. Higher than most other Office Managers in the same industry. And I like this as a career so unless I am forced out I am going no where. In my industry experience is the key when it comes to pay and education and the ability to communicate well with the clients puts you above everyone in the business. You don't make more just because you are male.

No I don't think I'm paid what I'm worth, but not necessarily because I am a woman. I'm actually just in a significantly underpaid field given the amount of education that is required to enter it.

With that being said, there has been some stats to show that men in my field are more likely to get promoted to administrative and management levels over a woman, despite the fact that it is a heavily female dominated field. That irritates me.

Maybe I am in the minority but at my last job (before I became a SAHM) all of the managers, keyholders, department managers, or supervisors were all women. Then at my job before that I made more then almost every man there (the exception being the store manager) even though some of them had been there for 15 years and I was there only a year. Keeping this in mind I have no college diploma, or other job training other then previous job experience.

I have mixed feelings about this. I could ramble on and on, but here is the gist. For O., a woman is more likely to have a spottier work history than a man because she is more inclined to be stop working to stay home and rear children. Honestly, I still feel it's a man's world out there, so good luck in the quest for equality. I also think that as long as a woman is married to a man who brings home a good salary, she doesn't have to work; she can choose to do whatever she wants which hurts her if her marriage fails and she doesn't have the skill set to get a good job.. Now on the flip side, I also think that the workforce is changing. Do I think that a woman who does the same job as a man be paid the same? Yes, I think so. Equal pay for equal work. But, I don't always think the play field is equal.

I think that women who take time off out of the workforce will always get paid less than a man. There are women who can pull it off, but they are the higher echelons in business - not the top - there is still that glass ceiling.

I don't know what, if anything, will be done about it, regardless of Mr. Obama's support, to be honest. I'm not all that optimistic. Sigh...

Dawn

Heck no, I'm not paid what I'm worth. I work in an office that is 100% staffed by women (with the exception of a man who comes and fills for a few hours once in a while if we are understaffed). There have been no raises in over a year. We are employed by a woman who is quite successful and frankly, works us half to death. I'm thankful to have a job, but I am biding my time until I find something else or my son graduates high school next year, whichever comes first.

I did work for a male boss who paid the other office person, who was a male, the same as me even though he had nowhere near the experience, responsibility or work ethic. He paid him the same as me, a single mother, solely because he was married and had a wife. That's bad enough, but they are older, her kids are grown adults (he has no kids) and she was the executive of a bank who made more money than both of us with benefits up the wazoo.

I just thought the whole thing was crappy all together and I was quite glad to leave.

Two weeks after I left, he was caught in a huge and seriously lie that cost my boss a lot of money to clear up and he cleaned out his desk and disappeared to avoid being fired. He's been fired from every job he's ever had, in fact, my very same boss had fired him once before.

In this economy, MANY people are underpaid because jobs are so scarce and employers can get away with it. I'm pretty sure that's my boss's attitude. If any of us don't want to be there, it wouldn't be hard for her to find someone who does. She's hired people because we are short staffed, but they don't stay long. The demands for the pay are too high.

Unfortunately, I think this will continue to be the case with employers until there are more jobs than hundreds of applicants for each position be they male or female.

Just my opinion.

No I don't, I'm guessing that's because I'm a stay-at-home mom.?!

In all seriousness, no I don't think it's right. I would want to be paid the same as the man next to me if we were doing the same job.

In my husbands field of work, both sexes get paid the same rate. He works the night shift which gets a higher pay (shift differential), and all the men in the hospital work the night shift along with him (while the wife stays home with the family). I'm wondering if data like this comes into play when calculating numbers as to who gets paid more?

i don't have any experience to relate to the gender issue - but i do know that my company has not given cost of living raises in 4 years - and in that time i got "promoted" (yes with a SMALL raise) and now find myself doing the jobs that used to be performed by 3 separate people. great promotion huh? and i don't even get an office! (which, O. of the people whose duties i inherited, DID HAVE.)

so no, i'm not paid what i'm worth :)

but then neither are the men i work with. and from what i hear this is a national epidemic as well, with companies laying people off, and freezing wages. i'd be happy if ALL OF US got raises, to be honest. something to keep pace with inflation, perhaps?

(i think, rebecca, that all of us start at entry level at the same wage - at least i'd hope so. it's the raises and promotions that women miss out on, imo.)

Where I work men and woman are started out on the same pay rate. I don't know if that is the same with the higher up people or not.

** adansmama, that's not always true... at O. of the jobs I was working at we found out that the men started at 50 cents higher than the women and when asked they had a different reason as to why.. but it came down to gender because some of the women that was hired was more experienced than some of the men that got hired on at a higher rate.

In my former life, I worked in HR at a Fortune 500 company and was paid well. In fact, I got perks that men didn't because coporations are competing for great women and minorities. Many women (including me, when I first started) felt uncomfortable with this, but some felt no guilt or apologies for accepting what was offered.

What I saw was that it is impossible to define "equal work" in most professional settings. There are so many factors that impact the equation - college attended, GPA achieved, degree earned, leadership experience, technical experience, job description, job level, experience in similar roles, etc. For this reason, I am usually skeptical of all employment "data" for jobs above minimum wage.

I can also offer that legislation will not fix this problem. Women who feel undervalued need to act accordingly - ask for better pay or benefits, talk to a recruiter about comparable jobs, be willing to make a change. Most of the women I know who are paid less than comparables have made decisions to accept it, either consciously placing other values (work they enjoy, non-cash benefits, location, etc.) above salary or sub-consciously avoiding the "confrontation" that would increase their pay level. Yes, ladies, sometimes you have to ask for what you want...