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Women encounter a pay gap at every stage of life, but nowhere is it more pronounced than during the retirement years. On all three components of the “three-legged stool” of retirement security — Social Security, pension and savings — women fall short.  As a result, they have 70%��of the income that men have during retirement.

Older women are more likely than men to live below the poverty line:�� In , 11% of women over age 65 lived in poverty, compared to 8% of men. And even those who aren’t impoverished struggle to get by on meager incomes: ��While white men over 65 have an average annual income of $44,200,��Black women in that age group have only $21,900, Latinas have $14,800, and white women have an average annual income of $23,100.

�ճ󲹳�’s��because, over the course of a lifetime,��the gender pay gap causes women to��lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in earnings, making it difficult for them to accumulate savings.��What’s more, because women are more likely to work part-time, or to��move��in and out��of the workforce as they juggle caregiving responsibilities, they are less able to save for retirement and less likely to have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Lower wages — coupled with time away from work — results in lower Social Security benefits.  ��