One woman fighting the wage gap is 62-year-old Valerie Candy. “So we know that not only do we need to fix the wage gap in very traditional ways, ways can we do by strengthening our equal pay laws, but also getting women into more high-paying in-demand jobs,” Bunning said.

These include strengthening the state’s equal pay protections, investing in child care to support and expand the workforce, and streamlining and strengthening the workforce development pipeline for women and children. To help women make a better living, the Women’s Foundation of Alabama outlined some recommendations in its report. But we know that women are overrepresented in the lowest paid jobs, which means women that are living at or below the poverty,” Bunning said. And that is across the board, whatever the economic strata of women and families.

“So 74% of households in Alabama are led by a female breadwinner. According to the data, Black and Hispanic women may only make 52 cents and 41 cents, respectively, for every dollar a white male makes.

The group’s recent “Clearing the Path” report stated women on average are paid only 67 cents for every dollar a man earns. “We learned that the wage gap in Alabama is one of the largest in the South when you look at what women and men are paid,” said Rachel Bunning, vice president of the Women’s Foundation of Alabama. This information is fueling one organization to change the way women are paid by closing the wage gap and help them make a more equitable living.

(WSFA) - More women in Alabama are considered the breadwinners in their homes, but a task force study says they’re also more likely to live in poverty.

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