U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Fights for Equal Pay
More stories from Bruce Czachor
US Woman’s Soccer Team
Gender inequality in pay is nothing new for people in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earned less than 60 cents on average for every dollar that a man earned throughout the 60’s and 70’s. The gap has decreased since then, but has halted since 2001 at around 77 cents in women’s income for every dollar that men earn.
On Thursday, April 7, the battle for equal pay took an interesting turn. The highly successful U.S. Women’s Soccer Team filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging wage discrimination by the U.S. Soccer Federation. All parties agree that there is pervasive wage discrepancy in the sport. Women on the U.S. National Team make approximately 40% of the salary of the men’s team. In the U.S. pro leagues, the problem is worse, as the National Women’s Soccer League caps annual pay at $37,800 per player while men of Major League Soccer earn an average salary of over $300,000 per year.
At the world level, when the U.S. Women’s team won the Fifa World Cup Championship in 2015, they brought home $2 million, while the U.S. men were awarded $9 million from their 11th place finish in 2014.
Clearly, the pay between men and women are very uneven and the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team is making serious headway to fix this problem.