Justice

Sarah Silverman Provides The Most Provocative Explainer of the Wage Gap You'll Ever Watch

October 27th 2014

Sarah Silverman is out with her latest provocative (and potentially NSFW) video... and it doesn't disappoint. In it, she discusses a "vagina tax" to highlight the wage gap between men and women.

It's well known and widely cited that women earn 78 cents on the man's dollar. This statistic has been furiously debated, but as the Center for American Progress notes, the comparison "reflects gender differences in jobs, hours worked, years of experience, educational attainment, or personal choices that people make about their careers. Incorporating these significant factors is precisely what makes the number valuable." 

According to the Equal PayBack Project, "a working woman typically loses $10,876 a year to the wage gap. Over the course of a 40-year career, that’s $435,049 (assuming the wage gap, which hasn’t changed in nearly a decade, stays constant over her career). Multiply that by the number of women in the workforce (almost 69 million)," and you get almost 30 TRILLION dollars.

The gender wage gap exists across multiple industries as well. 

wage gap

For instance, we recently covered a new report that stated how women in Hollywood see their compensation increase until age 34, while men see the pay increase until age 51. This research comes on top of data revealing that 98% of films feature more male than female characters, as well as the fact that only 2 of 2014's top 25 earning Indie films were directed by women.

One way to help close to wage gap: register or pledge to vote this election. 

Watch Sarah Silverman make the case why: