Last year I joined the Equal Pay Day luncheon and I learned a lot from it. Equal Pay Day represents the date in the current year through which women must work to earn the same amount their male counterparts earned the previous year. To summarize, women have to work longer to make the same as men.

The gender wage gap is widening again because men’s earnings are growing this year at twice the rate of women’s. Yes, men do earn more than women on average.

Today, I want to share a short video about one woman who learns how much she is paid compared to the men in the office. What would you do if you discovered the difference of your pay from your male colleagues? The work is the same and the position is the same, but your pay is lesser.

Watch this fun and very informative video:

Remember: “Do the job you’re paid to do.”

Full-time working women earn just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns on average. This significant gap is more than a statistic — it has real life consequences. When women, who make up nearly half the workforce, bring home less money each day, it means they have less for the everyday needs of their families, and over a lifetime of work, far less savings for retirement.

In closing this gap, I believe women should learn to negotiate their salary to get what they deserve.

Read these 5 articles to learn how to negotiate your salary and to get what the job is worth:

1. A Practical Guide to Salary Negotiations

If you dread negotiating your salary, you are not alone.  Negotiating salary is something that most people dread.  Here are a couple of the most common mindset mistakes that women make over and over again when it comes to negotiating their salary.

2. 5 Ways to Get What You Deserve During Salary Negotiations

If you dread negotiating your salary, you are not alone.  Negotiating salary is something that most women I work with dreads. Here are five things you need to understand to get paid what you are worth during salary negotiations.

3. 4 Salary Negotiation Tips to Get What the Job is Worth

Men see salary negotiation very differently than women.  A recent post about salary negotiation on Brazen Careerist by Ken Sundheim started with “Pushing to see what you can get is human nature.”  That may be true for men and salary negotiation but for the typical women pushing for more when getting a job do not often go hand-in-hand. Read this post by Katie Donovan to learn more.

4. The Truth Behind My Own Salary Negotiation Experiences

No one teaches you salary negotiation in college or business school.  It is one of those things you just have to figure out on your own.  But, what you negotiate at your first job will affect the salary of all of your future jobs.  I wish I knew that.

5. Which Job Should I Pick? How To Do a Salary Comparison

If you are on the hunt for a new career, it is vital that you know how to do a salary comparison between job opportunities. How can you decide which job is preferable between two options at two different companies that offer two different salaries? The decision might not always be as simple as picking the one that seems to pay a higher number at first glance. The decision could be much more complicated than it initially appears; these are a few of the factors you should consider.