This year's annual message from activists promoting equality in pay for men and women carries more urgency.

"In these unchartered economic times, it's troubling that historic wage discrimination exists and affects people who can least afford it," said Rosemary Harris Lytle. She is a member of Gov. Bill Ritter's Equal Pay Commission and president of the Colorado Springs Branch of the NAACP.

Rallies to mark Equal Pay Day will be held across the nation Tuesday, including at the Capitol in Denver. The date symbolizes how far into the year women must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year.

Lytle, who also is public relations coordinator for 9to5 National Association of Working Women, one of the event sponsors, will attend the rally.

After nearly 46 years of equal-pay laws, salaries for women who work full-time still lag more than 20 percent behind their full-time male counterparts, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

In Colorado, full-time working females, on average, earn about 79 cents for every dollar a man earns, according to a report the Equal Pay Commission completed last year for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment Nationally, it's 78 cents on the dollar.

The report also shows the salary discrepancy for minority women in Colorado is even larger: 68 cents on the dollar for Asian women, 62 cents on the dollar for black women and 52 cents on the dollar for Hispanic women.
 
When part-time workers are added to the mix, the gap increases. All women in the work force in El Paso County are paid 40 percent less than men, on average, or 60 cents to every dollar, according to first quarter 2008 statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With the poor economy, the salary differences are pushing more women into poverty, Lytle said. The number of females living in poverty in Colorado outweighs the number of males by nearly 100,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"It's significant - I don't get to go to the grocery store and pay 79 cents for what a man pays, or pay 79 percent of my taxes. It's the same thing," she said.

Several factors contribute to pay disparities, including education level, work experience, maternity leave and family issues, part-time status and discrimination. Societal attitudes also play a role, Lytle said.
"Even though our lives are different today, it's ingrained that men still need to earn more because they take care of families, and we know that's no longer only the reality," she said.

Loopholes in laws that govern equal pay also have been a roadblock, she believes, but said strides are being made. Nationally, the Fair Pay Restoration Act, which Congress passed in January, reversed a Supreme Court decision and stipulated that workers must have a reasonable time in which to file a pay discrimination claim.

The Paycheck Fairness Act of 2009 has passed the House of Representatives and is expected to be introduced soon in the Senate.

It would narrow the defense employers can use to show a difference in pay is not based on gender.

It also would prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information and permit employees to seek damages against employers who violate equal pay laws.


Gazette reporter Perry Swanson contributed to this story.