The "not" Equal Pay Day reminds and warns of pay discrimination, financial imbalances

(PARIS, France) Even older than the workplace and daily living anti-discrimination Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the Equal Pay Act that President John Kennedy signed in June 1963.

"I am delighted today to approve the?Equal?Pay?Act?of?1963, which prohibits arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages." Despite government intervention, a gender and ethnicity-based wage gap exists into the 21st century in the U.S.—into virtually every occupation and no matter what educational level and qualifications a worker achieved.

Black women, those working full-time and year-round in the U.S., had to work seven months extra (from January 1, 2023 until July 9, 2024) to earn what a non-Hispanic white male earned between January 1 and December 31, 2023.

The U.S. Department of Labor explains “[t]he largest identifiable causes of the gender wage gap are *differences in the occupations and industries?where women and men are most likely to work. (Bold type is original to the DOL’s report.)

The DOL continues: "In 2023,?Black women lost $42.7 billion and Hispanic women lost $53.3 billion in wages?as compared to white men due to the impact of occupational segregation. However, even?within the same occupation, women make less on average than men."?+

And, what have you experienced?

Listen to Others as you would have them listen to you?

Would you tell me about your wage history; a gap or no gap based on bias? Write me at [email protected] to request my "Testimony on Economic Lynching in the United States," my research on salary gaps, opportunity gaps, and career suppression.

Where do you land on the pay calendar? ?

A Native woman must work the longest to match the (full-time and year-round) salary a white non-Hispanic male employee earns in twelve months. For women in this group, it takes 23 months to earn the equivalent of the 12-month salary. On November 21, 2024, that day will arrive for these women. It lands slightly ahead of the Nov. 30 Equal Pay Day in 2023.?Find yourself on the calendar, published at https://www.equalpaytoday.org.

Looking at the entirety of a working life, not only Native women, but all women, come up short. Education, industriousness, and work ethic cannot move the needle enough to overcome the salary hole. Statistics gathered by the U.S. government show women workers lose between hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars in compensation.

The additional financial hit is the reduced--or lack of--investment portfolio growth.

Check out Holly Corbett’s 2023 Forbes article -?"Women’s Equal Pay Day: Black Women With Doctorates Lose $2.1 Million In Wages." Journalist Corbett focuses on?bias, workplace equity and social justice.

"We observe Equal Pay Day to raise awareness about the harmful wage gaps between men and women and demographic Equal Pay Days throughout the year to raise awareness about the harmful wage gaps faced by women of color as compared to their white non-Hispanic male? counterparts," according to https://www.equalpaytoday.org.

Solutions are proposed; are they within reach? ?

• The Paycheck Fairness Act would update and strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and biases based on "pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics." With 225 co-sponsors, the bill passed in the U.S. House, but it died in the Senate (2021). See govtrack.us.
• The Salary Transparency Act (H.R. 1599), sponsored by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, "would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to require an employer providing an employment opportunity to disclose the wage range for such employment opportunity to employees and applicants for employment, and for other purposes." (Source: Info.gov)

Additional research: https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/research/equal-pay-day-2024-workplace-equity

+Source: https://blog.dol.gov/2024/03/12/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-gender-wage-gap # # #

Nita Wiggins teaches "How African American Woman Affect Policy: From President Truman to the 2024 Election" at Sciences Po Université in Paris, France. Read her "Testimony on Economic Lynching in the United States" at the link provided. Her memoir is called Civil Rights Baby: My Story of Race, Sports, and Breaking Barriers in American Journalism. For worldwide book purchasing and other information, visit www.nitawiggins.com. Also visit Nita's YouTube channel to view her appearances on France 24 TV.