Today is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, marking the date that Black women have to work into the new year to finally catch up to what white, non-Hispanic men earned last year.
Taking into account all Black women workers, including full-time, part-time, and part-year workers, Black women are paid only 67 cents an hour relative to $1 paid to a white, non-Hispanic men. As a result, Black women will not achieve pay parity with those men this year until September 21, 2022.
As reproductive justice advocates pointed out earlier this year, it’s important to note that while Equal Pay Day—the day of the year women on average must work to catch up to non-Hispanic white men—improved by a week, the wage gap for Black women just got worse.
From In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda:
“The wage gap proves that Black women have been disparately impacted by the pandemic and inflation,” said In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda President and CEO Marcela Howell. “Black women workers shouldered the burden of the pandemic; Black women were more likely to be essential workers, risking their lives while many others worked from the safety of their homes, yet Black women’s wages suffered too.”
We cannot achieve gender equity without racial equity. We must work to dismantle barriers and systems of oppression holding women of color back, which in addition to overt anti-Black discrimination and bias includes occupational segregation into relatively lower paying jobs.
Black women, meanwhile, are both most likely to be their family’s breadwinners and more likely to be the sole or primary caretaker of their families.
In Pennsylvania, the Black women’s pay gap for all Black women workers is $14,037. This disparity persists leaving too many Black women without the resources to provide the essentials of food, housing, and childcare their families need.
The City of Philadelphia is another matter: the wage gap for Black women is smaller than the state average, but the need is greater. A close look at Philadelphia wage gap data reveals that the smaller gap is due to suppressed wages overall.
As Judith Levine of the Public Policy Lab of Temple University explained,“Philadelphia’s workforce is younger, less educated, more Black and Hispanic, and more concentrated in lower-paying jobs than the surrounding suburbs, meaning the city is at once poorer and more equal.
At 26%, Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate of the 10 largest cities in the country.
Take Action!
Pennsylvania has not amended the state Equal Pay Act since 1967, when it was amended to apply to fewer people.
WLP supports House Bill 821 which would update the law to more effectively address wage discrimination based on sex, race, and ethnicity.
In honor of Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, please contact your Representative and urge them to support HB 821.
Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond. As a non-profit organization, we can not do this work without you. Please consider supporting our work.
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