Among full-time workers, women represented by unions earn an average of $157 more per week than women with nonunion jobs. Minority women as a group get less of an increase--earning $135 more per week than minority women in nonunion jobs.

In 1996, women were paid 74 cents for every dollar men received. Over a lifetime of work, this 26 cent loss adds up. The average 25 year old employed woman will lose $523,000 due to unequal pay during her working life.

The inequality is even worse for women of color. African American women earn 67 cents and Latinas 58 cents for every dollar that men as a group earn.

In 1994, women's private-pension benefits were less than half those of men--$3,000 a year, compared to $7,800.

More than two-thirds of all mothers in the United States work for pay.

If married women were paid the same as men in comparable work, their family incomes would rise by nearly 6%, and their families' poverty rates would fall from 2.1% to 0.8%.

If single women earned as much as men in comparable work, their incomes would rise by 13.4%, and their poverty rates would be reduced from 6.3% to 1%.

If single employed mothers earned as much as men in comparable work, their family incomes would increase by nearly 17%, and their poverty rates would be cut in half, from 25.3% to 12.6%.

(source AFL-CIO. Check it out at www.aflcio.org. and www.igc.org/labornet.)

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