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National Partnership for Women & Families recently released a survey that proves that equality in pay is still a distant hope for women of color, specifically African-American women. Each year, African-American women in the United States are paid $18,817 less than the majority of White men. It’s being reported that in the 20 states boasting the most full-time working African-American women, it’s the women of color who earn just 70 cents for every dollar paid to men and just 64 cents for every dollar paid to White men.
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Debra L. Ness, the President of the National Partnership for Women & Families said in a release:
Women of color are hard hit by a kind of perfect –- and perfectly devastating –- storm caused by discrimination, a struggling economy and the country’s failure to adopt family friendly workplace policies. These new data show that the wage gap is costing women of color thousands of dollars in critical income each year that could be spent on food, rent, health care and on meeting other fundamental needs for their families.”
As a woman of color, I’ve seen it before–my mom made miracles happen for her little family of six with her meager wages. She’s not the first, nor the last to make money stretch beyond its capabilities because we have to. Now there’s statistics backing up what we already know.
If the wage gap was closed, working Black women would be able to afford more than two years worth of food, 10 months of mortgage and utilities, over three years of health insurance monthly premiums and over a year’s worth of rent. Well, I’ll be! If we were paid fairly, Black women, we could survive out here in these streets without stress or strain!
Can we hurry up and get this Paycheck Fairness Act on and popping? If not that, then someone needs to make sure higher paid jobs are available for more women asap.
What do you beauties think?
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Why Don’t African-American Women Get Equal Pay For Equal Work? was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
