Unequal Pay Day for Black and Latina Women

The Gender Wage Gap Is Even Worse for Many Women of Color

SOURCE: AP/Mark Lennihan

Lacqrecia Verley, center, Daniqua Williams, second from right, and Seiella Springer, right, join a line of hundreds of people seeking to apply for employment at an M&M's World store in New York. Black and Latina women are disproportionately unemployed and paid less for their work. 

By Julie Ajinkya | April 16, 2012

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Equal Pay Day tomorrow highlights how many days into 2012 women must work to earn what men earned in 2011. Sadly, the earnings of many women of color continue to lag even further behind those of their white counterparts. Women overall earn less on average than men, and this means that they must work longer for the same amount of pay. But the wage gap is even greater for women of color. And other indicators show that they also face greater levels of economic insecurity—they are also disproportionately unemployed, more often live in households in poverty, and more often head households living in poverty. Our chart tells the tale.

Julie Ajinkya is a Policy Analyst with the 2050 Project at the Center for American Progress.

See also:

• The Top 10 Facts About the Wage Gap by Audrey Powers and Sarah Jane Glynn
• Infographic: The Gender Pay Gap by Matt Separa
• The New Breadwinners: 2010 Update by Sarah Jane Glynn
• The Gender Wage Gap Double Whammy by Sarah Jane Glynn
• Pay Equity and Single Mothers of Color by Sophia Kerby
• Gender Equality for Green Jobs Worldwide by Rebecca Lefton, Jorge Madrid, and Lejla Sadiku
• 10 Facts About Latino Women and Pay Inequity by Vanessa Cárdenas
• The Gay and Transgender Wage Gap by Crosby Burns
• The Health Insurance Compensation Gap by Jessica Arons and Lindsay Rosenthal