Our guest blogger is Joshua Garcia, an intern with the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress.

Today marks the seventieth annual Equal Pay Day, which serves as an important reminder that women and people of color continue to complete equal work for unequal pay. Women, for example, made on average only about 77 cents for every dollar men made in 2010. According to the Center for American Progress, LGBT workers also perform equal work for unequal pay, which inflicts significant economic harm on them and their families.

Recent research and data reveals that gay men earn 10-32 percent less than straight men with similar productive capacities. These findings hold true even when controlling for education, race, experience and occupation. Wage disparities are less clear for women. On average, gay and bisexual women earn equitable or sometimes more wages than straight women, yet they still earn significantly less than both gay and straight men. For transgender individuals, transgender women earn significantly less after their gender transition while transgender men earn slightly more. Additionally, gay employees in the public sector earn significantly less (8 to 29 percent) than straight employees, revealing that public-sector discrimination is no different than that which occurs in private employment.

LGBT people are more economically vulnerable than their non-LGBT counterparts due in part to these wage disparities. Contrary to common stereotypes, the average household income for same-sex couples with children is 20 percent lower ($15,500) than straight couples raising children. These wage disparities similarly cause high poverty rates in the LGBT community. For example, children with same-sex parents are twice as likely to live in poverty compared to children living with straight married parents. Transgender individuals face similar circumstances. 15 percent of transgender Americans report making less than $10,000 per year—a rate of poverty that is quadruple that of the general population.

In addition to discrimination in pay, LGBT Americans suffer from high rates of discrimination in hiring and firing, leaving many jobless and without a means to support their family. Employment discrimination also harms businesses by introducing numerous costs and inefficiencies that detract from companies’ bottom lines.

LGBT people strongly need comprehensive federal workplace protections. What they need is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which would prevent the firing of employees on indicators irrelevant to workplace performance, such as sexual orientation or gender identity. Notably, nondiscrimination laws such as ENDA would also make wage discrimination against LGBT workers illegal.

Everyone in America deserves the right to work to ensure the health and wellness of them and their family, regardless of how he or she lives or whom he or she loves. On Equal Pay Day, our lawmakers should take swift action to help right this wrong.

On Sunday, the 2.1 million Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ordained Katie Ricks, its first openly lesbian minister. The ordination was the result of a change the Church adopted last May, amending its Book of Order to allow openly LGBT members to serve as ministers, elders, and deacons. ThinkProgress spoke to Ricks prior to her ordination in North Carolina, as she pledged to lead the fight against LGBT discrimination within her community:

Q: What would you say to conservative religious leaders who use the Bible to oppose equal rights for gays and lesbians?

RICKS: What I’ve seen here in this Presbyterian [in North Carolina] is people who are admittedly very opposed to my ordination. These are people who definitely voted ‘no’ on the day that I was approved. But these are people who I worked with in the Presbyterian, with whom I’m on the Council — which is the governing body of the Presbyterian — and so we find that common ground around our common belief in Jesus Christ….I think that we can come together and at least agree on a common ground is important.

Q: What is it like to be a leader in the Church and be openly gay?

RICKS: I grew up in the Church before I knew that I was gay and so I grew up going to Sunday school, learning the liturgy and the rituals of the Church, so those people are the ones who taught me that God loved me and the Church loved me. Any time I would show up in Church, those people would care for me…So that’s what I grew up knowing, that this is my hope and God loved me. So when I came out, I had the normal sort of angst that comes from that process, but I always knew that God loved me…So for me it comes down to being honest about who I am and claiming that God has created me as a lesbian and that it’s my responsibility — it’s my calling — to live in that creation.

Q: What message do you have for those advancing the discriminatory marriage amendment in North Carolina? Will you be using your new role to try to organize against the effort?

RICKS: I think for me, I certainly support marriage for all people who are in loving covenantal relationships. As a pastor, the witness of that covenant between people is an example of a covenant that God has with us. And so that covenant is important between those two people, but also the calling that people who are married to serve others…. I think the Church needs to be saying, we need to be honoring covenantal relationships…so I think the Church needs to be on the forefront of that.

Our guest blogger is Melissa Dunn, an LGBT Research and Communications intern at the Center for American Progress.

This Tax Season, gay and transgender- headed families are reminded that they are not equal in the eyes of the law. Because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), even in states that have achieved marriage equality, the federal tax code prevents legally married same-sex couples from filing together and qualifying for all of the same benefits of their straight married neighbors.

Last October, CAP coauthored “All Children Matter: How Legal and Social Inequalities Hurt LGBT Families,” a comprehensive report on the state of LGBT families with the Family Equality Council and the Movement Advancement Project. The follow up piece, “Unequal Taxation and Undue Burdens for LGBT Families,” focuses specifically on the income tax inequality faced by LGBT families. Below are the top five ways that marriage inequality hurts gay couples during tax season, according to those reports:

1. LGBT families are denied joint filing status and accompanying tax relief: Since married LGBT families are not legally recognized by federal law, they cannot receive the significant tax advantages of the “Married Filing Jointly” tax status, which means they have less money to meet the financial needs of their family. LGBT families can only file as “Single” or at best, “Head of Household,” even when they are married or in other legally recognized unions and partnerships.


2. LGBT families must misrepresent and “carve up” their families: Parents are forced to decide which parent “claims” their children for exemptions. To gain tax relief, some families must split their children between different tax returns. Other LGBT parents can only claim their children as “qualifying relatives,” or not at all. Heterosexual married families can simply file jointly, account for all children on one form, and check the exemption boxes.


3. Tax exemptions for spouses and dependents: In general, a taxpayer is allowed to claim one exemption for herself, one for a heterosexual spouse (if filing jointly and regardless of the spouse’s income) and one for each “qualifying child” or “qualifying relative.” For the 2011 tax year, each dependent reduced the taxpayer’s taxable income by $3,700, lowering the taxable income of a family of four by $14,800. For a family of four with an income of $45,000, this would reduce the tax due by about $2,220.


4. Education-related deductions and credits: The IRS offers a variety of tax credits, deductions, and savings plans to assist families with the expense of education. Several mechanisms are available for taxpayers, including reducing the amount of income tax that a taxpayer may have to pay (via tuition and fees deductions or credits such as the American Opportunity Credit), accumulating tax-free interest for education-related savings plans, or receiving tax-free education benefits (for instance, from an employer).


5. Earned income tax credit: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the earned income tax credit lifted more than 3 million children out of poverty in 2010. The EITC is a fully refundable credit, which means that even when a family has no taxable income, the EITC can result in a refund check from the IRS. In addition to the federal EITC, 23 states and the District of Columbia have state EITC programs, and a recent study found that half of all families with children receive the EITC at some point.

DOMA must be repealed in order to update the tax codes unequal treatment of LGBT-headed families during tax season. Until then, tax reform is needed to expand access to many of the deductions and credits not afforded to LGBT-headed families and broaden definitions such as “qualifying child” or “qualifying person.” These changes will help remedy existing inequities and allow LGBT families to benefit from the family- focused tax advantages and incentives available at the federal and state level to other families.