Inequities

Exposed
Black woman and the wage Gap
Table of contents
Background
Black Woman and the Wage gap
Black Woman and the Wage gap after
covid-19
causes of Racial Wage Gap
Where we are today
How does the Wage gap harm Black
Woman
What works and needs to be done
Background
A century later, race and gender continue to
create divergent and uneven outcomes for
women of all races and for men of color. This is
particularly evident in the underrepresentation
and experiences of women employed in
professional occupations. As it was in the early
20th century, women of color continue to
experience occupational and economic
disadvantages that reflect the ways both race
and gender affect their work experiences.
Black woman and the wage Gap
The painful irony is that Black woman have worked—in the narrow terms work
requirements’ proponents would understand—more than any other group in American
history. As the historian Steven Hahn has written, “African Americans were more
consistently a part of the nation’s working class, over a more extended period of time, than
any other social, ethnic, or racial group.”4 For Black women and men, slavery required full
employment. For the century that followed, Black women worked significantly more than
White women in formal, paid, employment, and their labor force participation has been
higher ever since—only recently have White women caught up. Black women almost
universally worked through the mid-twentieth century, when they faced systematic
discrimination entering a rapidly-changing industrial labor market that limited their ability
to get and keep jobs, which was compounded by mass incarceration in the decades that
followed. Today, Black women are more likely to work part time or to not work than White
women, but they are significantly more likely to do so involuntarily.
Black woman and the wage Gap after
covid-19
The pandemic has left many Black women
unemployed. In addition, the pandemic widened
disparities that further threatened their autonomy.
Racial, gender and class wage disparities are linked to a
lack of equal pay, adequate childcare, healthcare
infrastructure, and systematic racism. Without COVID,
Black women have historically held lower-paying jobs.
Thus, Black women have historically dominated the US
workforce, especially essential and non-essential
services in service-based industries
Causes of Racial wage
Gaps
 The history of the gender and racial wage gaps is inextricably linked to the history of labor in
America. From depriving Black women of wages while they toiled under the system of slavery and its
aftermath, to creating lasting disparities in health, education, safety and opportunity for Native women
through land theft, to the legal and cultural limitations on women’s ability to earn money, our nation’s
story is replete with discrimination and its consequences. Exploitation of and theft from women of
color fueled America’s economic growth, and those crimes continue to reverberate in women’s lives
today
Since President Trump took office in Where we are
January 2017, his administration has both
stoked White racial anxieties and promoted today?
work requirements—not only encouraging
states to implement work requirements in
Medicaid, but seeking to restrict access to
food and housing assistance as well by
imposing and strengthening work
requirements. These are work requirements
stripped down to their essence, without
supports and services to help people get and
keep jobs.
 ‘‘To this day we see that when work requirements
are enacted, they are designed to harm Black people
most...”
Today this means that Black women in the
United States who work full time, year-
round are typically paid just 64 cents for
every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic
men. The wages of Black women are driven
down by a number of current factors
including gender and racial discrimination,
workplace harassment, job segregation and
a lack of workplace policies that support
family caregiving, which is still most often
performed by women
 The Wage Gap in the 12 States with the Largest Number of Working
Black Women
State Annual Wage Gap Cents on the Dollar Median Wages for White, Non- Median Wages for Number of Black
Hispanic Men Black Women Women Working
Full Time, Year-
Round

Texas $27,922 $0.58 $66,880 $38,958 604,243

Georgia $24,783 $0.59 $60,626 $35,843 577,381

Florida $21,453 $0.60 $53,601 $32,148 546,000

New York $26,547 $0.63 $70,954 $44,407 523,605

North Carolina $19,967 $0.63 $54,001 $34,034 372,509

Maryland $24,135 $0.68 $75,674 $51,539 357,300

State Number of Black Women Working Median Wages for Black Women Median Wages for White, Non- Annual Wage Gap Cents on the Dollar
Full Time, Year-Round Hispanic Men

California 333,074 $47,752 $80,893 $33,141 $0.59

Virginia 290,539 $39,267 $66,298 $27,031 $0.59

Illinois 270,123 $40,542 $66,596 $26,054 $0.61

Louisiana 229,863 $29,216 $60,441 $31,225 $0.48

South Carolina 221,751 $30,389 $55,150 $24,761 $0.55

Pennsylvania 216,282 $38,168 $58,920 $20,752 $0.65

How Does the Wage Gap Harm
Black Women?

Median wages for Black women in the United

States are $43,209 per year, compared to
median wages of $67,629 annually for white,
non-Hispanic men. This amounts to a difference
of $24,420 each year. These lost wages mean
Black women have less money to support
themselves and their families, save and invest
for the future, and spend on goods and services.
Families, businesses and the economy suffer as
a result
If the wage gap eliminated, on average
if the wage gap were eliminated, on average, a Black woman working full time, year-round would
have enough money for approximately

• More than two and a half years of child care

• More than two and a half additional years of tuition and fees for a four-year public university,
or the full cost of tuition and fees for a two-year community college
• Nearly 16 additional months of premiums for employer-based health insurance
• 174 more weeks of food for her family (more than three years’ worth)
• Fifteen additional months of mortgage and utilities payments
• More than twenty-two more months of rent
• More than 20 additional years of birth control
• Enough money to pay off the average student loan debt in one and one-half years
“They say we will not work,” but “we have been
working all our lives, not only supporting
ourselves, but we have supported our masters,
many of them in idleness.”
What works and what still need to be done?
Pay inequity is a structural problem that demands structural solutions. Over the last century
impactful legislation, such as the Social Security Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Equal Pay
Act, the Civil Right Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, has put important protections
and standards into place. Concerted efforts to ensure equity, such as affirmative action programs
and targeted enforcement mechanisms through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC), diminish the effects of workplace discrimination. But many of these laws provided at-
the-time solutions that are now, at best, outdated, and execution of programs is often stifled by
lack of funding.38 Policy makers and employers must take concerted, targeted steps to close the
gender and racial wage gaps, particularly as we respond to and recover from the COVID-19
pandemic
"Even when the law finally moves to protect white women, it often fails to
extend the same protections to women of color"
Government
Federal, state and local officials all play a vital role in
addressing discrimination in employment. But these
legal protections have not yet ensured equal pay for
white women and black men. Congress should act, as
should states and localities, to enact policies that will
help to close the racial wage gaps
• Make existing pay equity laws stronger
• Raise the minimum wage and eliminate the tipped
minimum wage
• Improve paid leave and child care support
• Institute robust protections against sexual, racial
and other forms of harassment
• Collect relevant data
Employers
Equal pay is important for legal and ethical reasons, but it can also be good for employers’ bottom
lines and employee recruitment and retention. When workers believe their employer is fair, it
improves their morale When workers believe they are paid fairly.
There are many practices employers can
voluntarily implement to help close the wage gap they are more likely to contribute their best effort

• Conduct pay audits

• Prohibit retaliation for wage disclosure
• Ban the use of prior salary historyt
• Publicize wage ranges for all job postings
• Offer paid family and medical leave to all employees
• Implement equitable recruitment, hiring and promotion practices
Thank you!