USA TODAY

Letter to the editor:

The extent of the disparity of pay between men and women is all in the details. Rarely do people ever mention whether the statistics reflect only cases where women and men have equal education and/or years of experience.

Why should a woman (or a man, usually many fewer) who leaves the workforce for years to raise a family expect to return at the same rate of pay as a man or a woman who did not leave the workforce for the same number of years?

When people are out of the workplace for any period of time, technology and knowledge in virtually any field will have changed so much that the returning worker will have to adjust and almost become an entry level worker. She (or he) will never fully make up for the lost years of employment.

In addition, exiting the workforce and then returning will most likely result in lower retirement payments than if she (or he) had remained employed during the lost years.

There are life-long financial consequences to leaving the workforce for any period of time, and women are much more likely to do it than men.

Anita Heygster; Pasadena, Md.

Policing the USA

Equal Pay Day provides rallying point for women in workplace

Facebook comments are edited for clarity and grammar:

Women should receive equal pay as men. However, Republicans have always been completely against this and always will be. No matter how big the societal push gets for equal pay, it won’t happen.

— Jeff Hartung

Should a woman get the same pay if she takes off several weeks for maternity leave when a man continues working? What about the increased health care cost in these situations? Men have less health care costs during these years. So maybe the equal pay doesn’t show up in wage/salary but does in benefits.

— Scott Jones