The 19th Amendment
Economics
2067 – The Year Pay Equity in the United States is Projected. We must do better.
According to the latest census information, women who work full-time, year round are paid 83 cents for every dollar men are paid. Part-time and part-year women workers earn 75 cents per dollar. Overall, there is a potential loss of $450,000 over a career.
The chasm is even more significant for women of color. The gender pay gap is the result of many factors, including occupational segregation, access to senior management roles, and direct pay discrimination. Racial bias, disability, access to education, opportunity, and age contribute to the difference between earnings. Consequently, different groups of women experience very different gaps in pay. Women also tend to make less, spending an average of 12 fewer years in the workforce than men, and typically have lower lifetime earnings, resulting in smaller Social Security payments.
“During the pandemic, women lost more jobs than men did and were more likely to shift to part-time employment due to increased caregiving responsibilities. When the economy rebounded, median earnings for women working full-time increased in 2023 — but only half as much as they did for men. As a result, the gender wage gap increased for the first time in 20 years.
Artificial intelligence presents a new challenge: 8 in 10 women in the U.S. workforce hold jobs highly exposed to generative AI automation, compared to 6 in 10 men. As women are projected to soon comprise the majority of the workforce, businesses must proactively safeguard and empower this significant employee segment.” Source: SHRM
Workplace leadership has significantly progressed as women achieve professional goals and management roles. A few have progressed to Fortune 500 CEOs. However, despite comprising half of the workforce, women still hold less than 13% of Fortune 500 CEO positions. In addition, the pandemic took millions of women out of the workplace and will significantly impact women in leadership roles if the issues of childcare and healthcare remain status quo. There is a broken rung in the career ladder.
The Women, Money, and Power Study findings, commissioned by Allianz Life Insurance Company, are compelling. Overall, despite the advancements of the past few years, women are struggling with financial literacy. Prioritizing financial literacy is the key to achieving economic and social equality. Financially literate individuals have the knowledge and tools to grow their wealth and make value-based decisions supporting career and life choices. This educational foundation fuels economic growth by building a broad movement supporting women-led and women-owned businesses. It is even more critical that women take ownership of their careers and finances as “The Great Wealth Transfer” of 2030 draws closer.
We are here to help you as an individual and to provide organizational programs that build awareness and spark lasting change.
Women at Work
We encourage learning about the women who led the right-to-vote movement at the beginning, planting seeds for equal rights amendment and those at the forefront today. (Pictured: Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument with Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.) With the vote came the ability to influence decisions, increasing access and opportunity in the workplace. Today, women and allies unite to uphold equality and press forward to achieve economic equity, the right to bodily sovereignty, and parity in leadership.
Crafted from the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, the Equal Rights Amendment introduced to Congress in 1923 stated: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.” During the 1940s, both major political parties supported the idea. However, the labor movement was committed to protective workplace laws, and social conservatives considered equal rights for women a significant risk to existing power structures. In the 1960s, Women’s Rights became a focus of the Civil Rights movement, demanding equal pay and representation.
On October 12, 1971, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equal Rights Amendment in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 354 to 24. On March 22, 1972, the proposed Amendment to the Constitution was finally approved and sent to the states for ratification, a standard practice with every Amendment since the 18th (Prohibition), excluding the 19th. Congress placed a seven-year deadline on the ratification process.
Note: This time limit was not set in the words of the ERA itself. Instead, it is in the proposing clause. The ERA moved out of Congress, securing 22 of the necessary 38 state ratifications in the first year, after which the process slowed and took decades to complete.
As the original deadline approached, ERA advocates appealed to Congress for an indefinite extension of the time limit. In July 1978, the National Organization of Women coordinated a victorious march of 100,000 supporters in Washington, DC. Congress granted an extension until June 30, 1982. When the 1982 deadline for ratification arrived, the ERA was three states shy of the necessary 38 states for full ratification.
The ERA Amendment:
“Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”
In 2020, Virginia became the 38th ratifying State. On January 21, 2021, a joint resolution to extend was introduced, by U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), and Congressman Tom Reed (R-N.Y.). On March 17, 2021, the House passed the extension. Now is the time to finalize what is to be the 28th Amendment.
October 21st, 2021, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, held a hearing entitled, “The Equal Rights Amendment: Achieving Constitutional Equality for All.” The hearing explored the current status of the ERA and the final steps necessary to certify the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the U.S.
In 2022, Kamala Devi Harris became the first female Vice President of the United States. She is the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history and the first African American and first Asian American vice president.
On January 17, 2025, President Joe Biden, issued a statement that declared that the Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land, supporting ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), potentially the 28th Amendment to the U.S. However, the director of the National Archives has not certified or published the proposed amendment. In an unusual joint statement by the archivist and deputy archivist of the United States stated the ERA could not be certified without further action by Congress or the courts due to the deadline considerations.
In honor of Equal Pay Day, on March 26, 2025 “U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) joins Mazie Hirono (D-HI), along with Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Madeleine Dean (PA-04), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37), and Jennifer McClellan (VA-04), in reintroducing a bipartisan, bicameral resolution to overcome a significant obstacle to the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This resolution would eliminate an arbitrary deadline set by Congress in 1972, paving the way to for the ERA to become the 28th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.”
