Now You Can do Something About Man/Woman Pay Gap

If you’re frustrated about the wage gap that persists between male and female workers, you can channel your energy into a new contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor and President Obama’s National Equal Pay Task Force.

The Equal Pay App Challenge invites the public to create innovative software applications that use the department’s data to educate users about the pay gap, and provide tools to combat it.

Women earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men doing comparable work–and the gap is wider for Latinas and African American women. Over a lifetime the pay gap results in lost wages, reduced pensions and diminished Social Security benefits.

Of course, unionized women do better than their unrepresented sisters, thanks to the power of collective bargaining. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that union women earn almost 34 percent more than nonunion women.

Software apps that “improve the accessibility of pay data broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, and provide coaching on early career pay, pay negotiation or career mentorship” are among the goals of the challenge. March 31 is the deadline and prizes will be awarded around Equal Pay Day in April. Find development tools here.