Many people know that women make 77 cents to the dollar compared to men. And the Senate last month blocked passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Sarah Silverman, for one, has had enough. Famous for her edgy humor and her viral videos, the comedian is taking matters into her own hands in more ways than one. Watch the start of her new video above: Silverman is taking drastic measures to get people to understand how big a deal the wage gap really is.
How much does that gap add up to in lost earnings for women? Over the course of a lifetime, assuming she works full time, a woman will lose approximately $435,049 in earnings due to the wage gap. Multiply that by 69 million working women, and that’s an enormous sum of $29,811,746,430,000.
In fact, the wage gap gets even worse for women of color, with African-American women making just 64 cents to the dollar, and Hispanic women making just 56 cents. There’s also a motherhood penalty — women who are mothers make just 69 cents to the dollar compared to men who are fathers.
The Equal Payback Project, a project of the National Women’s Law Center, aims to raise awareness about that $30 trillion in lost wages — with a tongue-in-cheek crowdfunding campaign aimed at closing the very large gap. Yes, that’s right — a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of raising just under $30 trillion.
The Equal Payback Project also teamed up with actress and comedian Sarah Silverman and creative agency Droga5 to create a satirical video about taking some drastic measures to get equal pay. You can watch the full video over at http://equalpaybackproject.com.
All donations raised via the crowdfunding project will go toward the National Women’s Law Center, which is a non-profit group that advocates for equal pay.
Take a look at how the wage gap affects women economically over the course of their careers below.
Nisha Chittal