Monday marked 50 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the landmark Equal Pay Act to prevent wage discrimination against women. In a speech commemorating the law, President Obama acknowledged the gender wage gap still endures half a decade later.

President Obama: “The day that the bill was signed into law, women earned 59 cents for every dollar a man earned, on average. Today, it’s about 77 cents. So it was 59, now it’s 77 cents. It’s even less, by the way, if you’re an African American or a Latina. Over the course of her career, a working woman with a college degree will earn, on average, hundreds of thousands of dollars less than a man who does the same work. Now that’s wrong.”