--- title: The Wage Gap Will Cost You Way More Than Half a Million Dollars description: Your salary affects your Social Security benefit, how much you can sock away for retirement, and how much you put into other investments. authors: - name: Alicia Adamczyk url: https://money.com/author/alicia-adamczyk/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 201 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/aliciaadamczyk former_staff: true published: '2016-04-12T20:18:56.000Z' modified: '2024-05-07T10:40:35.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - gender wage gap - pay gap - pubdesk - wage gap word_count: 359 canonical: https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![pink and blue piggy banks](https://img.money.com/2016/04/160412_car_wagegaplosses.jpg) You've come a long way, baby. But you're still making half a million dollars less than a man for the same work. That's according to a [new report](http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/pressreleases-671?ID=96EC0B5F-06E4-4748-AE70-250F6977A6A9) released by Rep Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), which finds the oft-cited [21-cent pay gap](https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-excuses-wrong/) between men and women adds up to $10,800 per year, or close to $500,000 over the course of a woman's career, based on the median annual earnings for full-time workers. As noted earlier this year when a report from the National Women's Law Center found a similar discrepancy, the average female will have to work 11 years longer than a man to make the same amount of money over a lifetime. But it's not just the $500,000 in salary that women are missing out on. Your salary determines things like your Social Security benefit (which is calculated based on your 35 highest-earning years), how much you can sock away in retirement accounts (and pensions, if your company still offers one), and how much you put into other investments. All that adds up to a lot more than $500,000 in lost salary. One example: Assuming a 5% real return on $10,800 additional dollars per year, that's [over $1.8 million](http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/compound-savings-calculator-tool.aspx) missing from your bank account (thank you compound interest!). Just imagine what you could do with all that extra money. Another example: Let's go back in time to one year ago. Suppose you used the $10,800 to buy 166 shares of Netflix stock (April 10, 2015's [adjusted close](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=NFLX&a=03&b=12&c=2015&d=03&e=12&f=2016&g=d&z=66&y=198) for Netflix was 64.94). With an adjusted close of 102.68 on April 11, you'd have $17,044.88 today. Other things you could do with $10,800: Save for your (future) child's astronomical [college tuition](https://money.com/best-colleges/); pay down your own student debt (which means paying less interest in the future and therefore even more money in your pocket); [treat yourself](https://www.google.com/search?q=treat+yo+self&espv=2&biw=1893&bih=837&tbm=isch&imgil=LqHmq09mUvDUnM%253A%253BCNjmUJzDjC7_ZM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.hercampus.com%25252Fschool%25252Fskidmore%25252Ftreat-yo-self&source=iu&pf=m&fir=LqHmq09mUvDUnM%253A%252CCNjmUJzDjC7_ZM%252C_&usg=__govHqm8-zBLEbaWUXcRRC5213CQ%3D&ved=0ahUKEwiiuJ3PvYnMAhWMGz4KHT7IBKkQyjcIJQ&ei=JB0NV6KWA4y3-AG-kJPICg#imgrc=LqHmq09mUvDUnM%3A) in any number of ways; save for a new home; travel; invest in your friend's start-up; donate to a cause that's important to you; contribute more to your 401(k); build up your [f\*\*\* off fund](https://thebillfold.com/a-story-of-a-fuck-off-fund-648401263659?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoku63IZKXonjHpfsX56%2BgkWaeylMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DScdrI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrXFMahm1LgOXRc%3D#.3ruiap5wv). The list goes on and on. The half-a-million-in-lost-wages statistic is certainly depressing enough, but it doesn't tell the full story. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Salaries and Wages", "item": "https://money.com/salaries-and-wages/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "The Wage Gap Will Cost You Way More Than Half a Million Dollars" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/", "name": "The Wage Gap Will Cost You Way More Than Half a Million Dollars", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-04-12T20:18:56.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-05-07T10:40:35.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "The Wage Gap Will Cost You Way More Than Half a Million Dollars", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/04/160412_car_wagegaplosses.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "160412_CAR_WageGapLosses" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alicia Adamczyk", "url": "https://money.com/author/alicia-adamczyk/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/alicia-adamczyk/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2016/01/alicia-headshot-2.jpg?quality=85&w=640&h=640&crop=1", "email": "alicia.adamczyk@moneymail.com", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/aliciaadamczyk" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-04-12T20:18:56.000Z", "description": "Your salary affects your Social Security benefit, how much you can sock away for retirement, and how much you put into other investments.", "abstract": "Your salary affects your Social Security benefit, how much you can sock away for retirement, and how much you put into other investments.", "@id": "https://money.com/gender-pay-gap-cost-half-million-dollars/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-05-07T10:40:35.000Z", "wordCount": 359, "keywords": [ "gender wage gap", "pay gap", "pubdesk", "wage gap" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Career counseling", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_counseling" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Wages and salaries", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_and_salaries" ] } ] } ] } ```