Equal Pay Day denotes how far into the new year women must work to be paid what men were paid the previous year. Started by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996, the goal was to raise awareness about the gender wage gap. Since then, other Equal Pay Days have been added to the calendar to denote that mothers and most women of color face a wider-than-average gap and need to work even longer to catch up to men’s earnings.