October 21, 2021. Today is Latina Equal Pay Day, which marks the day the average Latina woman must work to earn the same amount that her white male counterpart took home last year. She must work almost 10 months more!
This is the last of the Equal Pay Days for 2021. Latinas have the lowest earnings of any major race/ethnicity, earning 55 cents for every dollar paid to white males in 2019. And that percentage did not improve from 2011-2019. You read that right. No improvement! And if you break it down further by country of origin, some Latinas earn even less, with Honduran women earning a mere 44 cents.
Based on recently-released data, Latinas saw a slight improvement in 2020 – earning 57 cents on the dollar – but the data is misleading. The data does not take into account the million Latinas who left the workforce or the wages of women who worked less than fulltime for the full year, thereby excluding the lowest paid Latinas, who were hit so hard by the pandemic. We can hardly call that narrowing the pay gap.
As a result of the pay gap, the average Latina will earn roughly $2,400 less per month or $29,000 less per year. That adds up fast! Over the course of her 40-year career, a Latina will earn a staggering $1,156,144 less than her white male counterpart. Think about what that means to families!
At the current pace, the Latina gender pay gap will not close until 2206 – 185 years from now. 185 Years - that is at least six or seven generations of Latinas!
Some say Latinas are paid less because they are do not work as hard or have enough education or they choose to work in low paying jobs. All nonsense.
ENOUGH! Stop blaming women for the problem! Or worse yet – denying the existence of the gender pay gap. Tragically, it is so real, and it is going to be here for a long time if we do not take immediate action.