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Many are asking where are the black chefs and the women chefs after viewing the 2013 list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. And the lack of diversity is not just in the kitchen but across every aspect of the restaurant industry, according to news site RH Reality Check (via The Huffington Post).

“We tend not to realize that diversity is not the same as equity — that simply seeing a lot of restaurant workers from different backgrounds doesn’t mean that restaurant workers have equal opportunities to advance to jobs that will allow them support themselves and their families,” says Saru Jayaraman, director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) in her book Behind the Kitchen Door, published earlier this year.

And minorities who are in the business receive lower pay than their white counterparts. “There’s a wage gap of four dollars between white workers and workers of color in the restaurant industry,” Jayaraman explained in an interview with ROC. “We’ve done studies to show that the best-paying jobs in the industry — and there are some good-paying jobs — are held almost exclusively by white workers.”

Women too are overlooked—and are paid less. A 2010 report called “Waiting on Equality: The Role and Impact of Gender in the New York City Restaurant Industry” conducted by the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United revealed that women of color are largely segregated by segment in the restaurant industry with 38.5 percent of black women, 33.3 percent of Asian women, and 44.1 percent of Latina women surveyed working in the low-paying quick service sector. Men held 67 percent of Tier I front-of-the-house positions; women held only 32 percent, according to the report.  Women of color earn just 70 cents for every dollar paid to men and just 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.

“Women of color are hard hit by a kind of perfect –- and perfectly devastating –- storm caused by discrimination, a struggling economy and the country’s failure to adopt family friendly workplace policies,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, in a release. The Partnership is working to close the wage gap.

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Hot on the heels of Equal Pay Day, the Center for American Progress revealed data that shows 97 percent of American women are working full-time jobs that men are typically getting paid more money for.

The analysis is based on figures from 2011, and show that of the 534 professions listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women only earn more than men in seven of them. The number of women working those professions is 1.5 million, The Huffington Post says, or three percent of full-time women workers. “And even here, in the seven occupations that women do earn more, the wage difference is quite small,” the article continues.

The seven occupations where women are making more money than men are respiratory therapist ($62 per week), computer support specialist ($55), operations research analyst ($68), stock clerks and order fillers ($13), medical scientist ($25), bookkeeping/accounting/auditing clerks ($2), and packers ($1).

One expert from the Center for American Progress says the discrepancy is due, in part, to women not negotiating their salaries when they enter the working world.

So ladies, let’s start teaching the next generation of women to ask and negotiate right out of the gate.

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Do you feel a little more equal today?

There has been much data about the gender wage gap, but a new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau stats breaks down the gap by the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas in all 50 states—and includes an analysis of the wage gap for African-American women and Latinas in the 20 states where they are the majority. The analysis is being released for Equal Pay Day, which marks how far into the new year women must work in order to catch up with what men were paid the year before. It was conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Here are some the disheartening findings: The cities with the largest gender-based, cents-on-the-dollar pay differences are the Seattle, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Detroit. And, the states with the largest cents-on-the-dollar differences are Wyoming, Louisiana, Utah, and West Virginia.

The report also found that nationally, women who hold full-time jobs are only paid the oft-quoted 77 cents for every dollar paid to men who hold full-time jobs. African-American women and Latinas fare worse, paid 64 cents and 55 cents, respectively, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. This wage gap has been closing at a rate of less than half a cent per year since passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, said the report. This means that if things continue at this rate, women will not be paid equally for more than 40 years.

The findings looked at what the wage gap in each state and locality means in terms of women’s spending power, particularly on food, housing, and gas. This doesn’t bode well for the more than 15.1 million U.S. households headed by women, 31 percent of which fall below the poverty line, according to a press release.

While the study is enlightening, it is also staggeringly shocking. Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families agrees. “It is terribly disappointing that not a single state or metropolitan area has eliminated the wage gap that punishes women and their families. This new analysis illustrates how pervasive the gender-based wage gap is, and what it costs families,” said Ness in a press statement. “With most women serving as essential breadwinners for their families, the loss of this critical income has devastating consequences. Local, state and federal lawmakers should make ending gender discrimination in pay and promotions a much higher priority.”

Many are still pinning their hopes on the ability for the Paycheck Fairness Act to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, which is meant to help break harmful patterns of pay discrimination and establish stronger workplace protections for women. The bill, which has President Obama’s support, was reintroduced in Congress in January.  But more is needed, say advocates. The National Partnership and other advocates are calling on the president to issue an executive order on fair pay, which would set an example for the nation’s employers and help ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to support discriminatory pay practices.

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As we’ve mentioned (more than once, BTW) women still aren’t getting a fair shake when it comes to what they earn. The hourly pay of young, female college graduates dropped 8.5 percent between 2000 and 2011, compared to 1.6 percent for men. So it’s great that Forbes conducted analysis of data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to find out which jobs actually pay women the most.

It turns out jobs in healthcare, business, and computer science pay women the best. According to the study, pharmacist is the top paying job for women earning most a median salary of $98,000 per year. It is also the most equal paying job with most women making 100 percent as much as men; actual on par, equal pay. Other high paying healthcare jobs are nurse practitioners, occupational therapists, and medical and health services managers.

Next on the list of highest paying job is chief executive which has a median salary of about $90,000 per year and makes sense. Want better pay, pay yourself. However, there are very few instances where women are earning as much as men with the wage gap in this space earning women only 76 percent as much as men with the same title. Women are expected to see this gap at large companies and might want to seek out smaller or nonprofit companies to get the best pay.

Although women are underrepresented in computer engineering, it’s another place where we can expect great pay. As we’ve also said before, STEM careers are the thing.

Other notable jobs are lawyer, human resource manager, and psychologists. The worst paying jobs for women (and men, to be sure) are food preparation workers, laundry and dry-cleaning workers, cashiers, child-care workers, and maids and housekeepers, which earn less than $400 a week.

via Weight Watchers’ Facebook page

Jennifer Hudson got millions. Jessica Simpson is reportedly earning $4 million. Weight Watchers shells out mega bucks to it celebrity spokespersons, despite a 15.6 percent decline in earnings last year. But according to a New York Times article, women who actually work for the weight loss company are complaining about incredibly low pay.

“Some employees at Weight Watchers expressed irritation at being paid the minimum wage while the company lavishes millions of dollars on celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Hudson to advertise its weight-loss program,” writes the newspaper.

Weight Watchers meeting leaders, who go out into the community to encourage followers to continue with their regimen, have an $18 base rate, and it has not increased in more than a decade. And the workers say they are not reimbursed for mileage on the first 40 miles driven each day. An added insult, some complain, is that the overwhelming majority of its employees are women.

“We are not working for a charity or a nonprofit corp,” one Weight Watchers leader posted on the Web site. “This is a multimillion-dollar company with enough cash to advertise relentlessly on TV, and pay celebrities tons of money to lose weight.”

According to the article, Weight Watchers executives have hinted they will increase compensation for their low-wage earners in order to address the frustration.

This isn’t the first time Weight Watchers employees have been upset over low wages. Two years ago Weight Watchers reached a $6.2-million settlement to end a class-action lawsuit in California in which employees complained about minimum wage violations, off-the-clock work and receiving paychecks that did not explain how wages were calculated.

It is not just Weight Watchers short-changing their largely female workers. There seems to be a trend of low pay complaints and companies that are primarily staffed by and targeted to women. “The restlessness over low pay extends across the weight-loss industry to Weight Watchers’ rivals, including Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem,” reports The Times.

The is  lawsuit pending aging Jenny Craig in which employees in New York State claim they typically work through their lunch hour, but are not paid for that time. The company denies this.

Mary Kay, too, came under scrutiny last year. According to Forbes, the company has several legal actions against the concerning earnings by its sales representatives. We even reported this morning that nursing, an area that has always been heavily female, pays its female nurses less than the men.

As if we needed it, here’s more proof that women need to be more vocal about pay and getting what they deserve. If we aren’t we’ll get shortchanged.

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Where you live can affect your pocketbook in more ways than one. As we recently reported, where you live can affect your job opportunities. This is especially true for women, who on average earn only 77 percent as much as men in the U.S. but are the majority of breadwinners for their families. Forbes has put together a list of the best-paying cities for women in 2014. The magazine examined the 2011 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census (the latest data available), supplied by financial literacy website NerdWallet.

Here are the top five cities where women can earn the most:

1)      Our nation’s capital. “In the Washington, D.C. metro area women working full-time earn a median income of $57,128. That’s nearly triple the salary in the worst-paying city for women. In Opelousas, L.A., women earn just $21,658 a year,” reports Forbes.  D.C. attracts highly educated professionals who work in high-paying fields, such as politics and law. Still, even here, women earn only 81 percent as much men, who earn a median salary of $70,758.

2)      Do you know the way to San Jose? The second top-paying city for women is San Jose, CA. Women living here earn a median salary of $56,499. In fact, seven metro areas in California made the top 20 list. “California cities like San Jose and San Francisco have become hotbeds of innovation and recruit talent with backgrounds in engineering and computer science, among the best-paying fields,” writes the magazine.

3)    New England calls: The Bridgeport, CT woman’s median salary is $54,844, which is good, but still just 73 percent of what men make in the city. Urban centers in the East feature a high concentration of top-rated universities and highly-skilled, professional jobs, which pushes up earnings, according to Forbes.

4)   Golden Gate perks: The median salary in San Francisco is $54,376 for female workers. Women take home 84 percent of what men earn.

5)  Jersey Girl: In the Trenton, NJ metro area, a woman’s median salary is $52,319, which is 81 percent of a man’s.

The bottom of the list included cities in Texas, Florida and Missouri, where median salaries for women is less than $28,000.

The data also further highlighted the gender wage gap. “In fact, out of all the cities tracked, there are only four in which women earn equal to or more than men: Key West, Fla; Madera, Calif.; Fort Payne, Ala.; and Sebring, Fla, ” reports Forbes. All the more reason many women’s organizations are backing the Fairness Pay Act.

Would you relocate for better pay?

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There has been much talk about the gender wage gap — that women in the United States are paid just 77 cents for every dollar paid to men on average. But what’s not discussed as much is the wage gap as it applies to minority women. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African-American women earn just 70 cents for every dollar paid to men and just 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, reports The Huffington Post. “What’s more: It’s happening in the 20 states with the largest number of African-American women working full-time and year round, studies show,” writes the site.

Some government officials  and economists have been trying to find solution to the wage gap in general, and some experts have suggested that closing the gender wage gap would create a huge economic stimulus. But a report by the National Partnership for Women & Families says that pay equality is still a long way off — particularly  for women of color, reports HuffPo.

“These new data show that the wage gap is costing women of color thousands of dollars in critical income each year that could be spent on food, rent, health care and on meeting other fundamental needs for their families,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, in a release. The Partnership study found that “closing the wage gap would afford a working African-American woman more than two years’ worth of food; almost 10 months’ worth of mortgage and utilities payments; more than 16 months of rent; more than three years’ worth of family health insurance premiums; or 4,549 additional gallons of gas, each year.”

Experts stress that policymakers must pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and develop more ways “to either push women into higher-paying fields where the men are, or to make sure jobs women do hold are valued in the same way,” Heather Boushey, senior economist the Center for American Progress, told the Huffington Post last year.

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If you are like many, you worry about your parents as they grow older. The future may not be so rosy for mom.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) predicts poverty for mothers in their elder years, reports Forbes. The OECD is an international economic organization of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade.

In a press release, the organization takes a closer look at the earnings of mothers in many countries, including the United States. The wage gap between men and women, according to the OECD will leave many women unable to take care for themselves after they retire. In the U.S., the wage gap between men and women without children is seven percent. After women have children,  the wage gap increases to 23 percent.

Women typically retire on lower pensions, yet live an average of six years longer than men. As a result, says OECD, “[W]omen over 65 are today more than one and a half times more likely to live in poverty than men in the same age bracket.”

According to the latest Census Buerau data, more single mothers are living in poverty– a 31.6 percent poverty rate, or 4.7 million women in 2010. The numbers are more disheartening for elderly women. “Growing numbers of older Americans are spending their retirement years in poverty, according to a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute study. The proportion of older people living below the poverty line has been growing steadily since 2005,” reports U.S. News & World Report. Medical expenses seem to play a large part of  increase rate of poverty.  And again, women are hit the hardest. “Poverty rates for women were nearly double that of men in almost all years between 2001 and 2009. In 2009, poverty rates were 7 percent for men and 13 percent for women,” writes the magazine.

Are you concerned about your mother’s retirement?