U.S. Women's Soccer: Equal Pay for Equal Play?

In the midst of COVID-19 updates and adjusting to a new normal, it would have been easy to miss a significant update in the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) lawsuit that occurred earlier this month.

As a reminder, the team filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation in March 2019. The suit gained international attention when the team claimed another dominant victory in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. The crowd chanted “Equal Pay!” as the U.S. team celebrated their 4th World Cup victory on July 7th, 2019.

On May 1st, 2020 a federal judge rejected the women’s team’s argument against receiving lower pay than the U.S. men’s team. Is the USWNT experiencing gender-based pay discrimination? We’ll walk through the research behind both sides' arguments.