Inequity in pay for Black women highlighted at National forum on gender gap

26th August 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer

August 22 marked National Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, representing how far into the year Black women work to earn what their white, male counterparts earn in the year prior alone.

In other words, “Black women in America have to work 599 days to earn what white men earn in 365,” Ava Duvernay said on Twitter Thursday, where the topic #blackwomensequalpayday was trending.

In Louisiana, Black women must work until February 21, 2020 before their earnings will catch up to their white, male counterparts, according to a new analysis from the Women’s National Law Center. The state is ranked worst in the nation for Black women’s pay equity, with Black women earning 47 cents for every dollar that white, non-Hispanic men earn (compared to 61 cents for every dollar nationally). Over a forty year career, that gap results in $1,196,840 less earnings.

Business advocacy groups and local lawmakers take issue with many studies surrounding the wage gap, arguing that the data does not adequately account for differences in skills, training and education.

The wage gap data that has been discussed in Baton Rouge has been nothing but bad statistics from which a political issue has been created,” said Senator Conrad Appel, representing Louisiana’s Ninth District. “They take all women and all men and take all women and all men and add them together and say, ‘we have a huge wage gap.’ They do not factor the analysis by job type, education, longevity at a job, whether the woman takes off to raise a family, etc. So, very few in the legislature put much faith in those numbers.”

Jasmine Tucker, who authored the report and serves as Director of Research at the National Women’s Law Center, said that their analysis controls for differences in education and occupation. “We looked at the median-earning Black women and median-earning white men in a specific profession, so the fiftieth percentile white man and Black woman in nursing, for example, and then take a ratio of their earnings, and that’s how we calculate the gap,” she said.

“What we find is that in virtually every space that we look, Black women are being paid less, regardless of education and regardless of occupation, and in Louisiana you guys take the ticket for being the worst state in terms of wage equality,” Tucker said.

Governor John Bel Edwards has worked with several state senators and representatives over the last three years, including New Orleans Democratic senators J.P. Morrell and Troy Carter, introducing legislation extending equal pay protections to female state contract workers, prohibiting pay secrecy in the workplace, and raising the state’s minimum wage, all efforts to mitigate the pay gap, which haven’t passed.

New Orleans’ state representative Joseph Bouie, Jr., also authored legislation to lessen the pay gap. “I advocated for and authored HB63 to help lessen the wage gap of 70 cents on the dollar for working women in Louisiana compared to a white man. It’s time we end this obvious systemic discrimination based on gender,” he said.

Demanding pay secrecy, or requiring that employees do not discuss their wage or salary, is illegal at the federal level, leading opponents, including Senator Appel, to criticize such legislation as redundant. Supporters argue that not all workers are protected at the federal level, and that workers in Louisiana need more support from the state, and not just the option of a federal EEOC claim when their rights are violated.

“We have to create protections for folks so they can freely talk about how much they earn without being fired,” said Pepper Bowen Roussel, a current candidate for the state legislature in the 91st district. “Like the legislation Senator JP Morrell shepherded in the spring lifting pay secrecy that didn’t pass… That’s how you make sure you get paid the same amount of money for doing the same job, with the same education and experience. No one is pushing back against pay difference based on experience.”

Bowen Roussel is one of dozens of women running for Louisiana’s state legislature this year, hoping to work toward more equitable representation in the state’s government. As it stands, women make up a little over half of Louisiana’s population and around 15 percent of the legislature.

In addition to ending pay secrecy and passing equal pay legislation, experts at the National Women’s Law Center also recommend union membership as a way to improve Black women’s wages. “The ability to collectively bargain makes a big difference in earnings,” Tucker said. “If a Black woman is part of a union, she earns $153 more per week on average, so that’s definitely more money in someone’s pocket.”

There has been some narrowing of the wage gap over the decades, but change is happening very slowly. Since data collection began in 1967, the gap for Black women workers has narrowed from 43 to 61 cents nationally. At that rate, Black women will be paid less than 80 cents per dollar when compared to white men in 2069.

“My lived experience tells me that as a Black woman, I always make less than my white male counterparts,” Bowen Roussel said. “I came from IT and then went into law, so I’ve spent a lot of time in sectors dominated by white men. This is concerning on a personal level. To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s 68 cents less or 82 cents, the bottom line is that I don’t make the same amount of money. We should all want people to be paid what they’re worth, and what they’re earning.”

This article originally published in the August 26, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.