It’s International Women’s Day, but so much for coming a long way, baby — the gender pay gap has barely budged over the past 20 years. What’s especially sad is that, while women launch their careers earning close to what their male colleagues are making, the divide between what men earn outpaces the income of their female counterparts as they continue in their careers.
So, what’s going on? American women still typically earned just 82 cents for every $1 that a man made last year, which is depressingly close to what the gender pay gap was back in 2002, when women earned 80 cents to the dollar. That’s according to a recent Pew Research Center data essay in honor of Women’s History Month in March, and ahead of Equal Pay Day on March 14; the latter symbolizes just how far into the year U.S. women must work — in addition to what they worked the entire previous year! — to earn what men did year before. And the gender pay gap has persisted in the 21st century despite the fact that women are more likely than men to have graduated from college, which should theoretically raise their earning power. Related: Women need to save more, earlier and invest more aggressively for retirement – here’s why First, it should be noted that the gender wage …