Media clips
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The Economic Policy Institute reports that even Black women who are essential workers face a pay gap of about 11-27% less than white men. Black female nurses, for instance, earn about $28.47/hour while non-Hispanic white men earn $34.87 for the same job.
The study adds that occupational segregation often limits the access Black women have to higher-paying jobs, and that the pandemic saw a disproportionate share of women, especially Black women, become unemployed. 18.3% of Black female workers lost their jobs compared to 13.2% of white men.
Next City August 6, 2021 -
Includes quote from Celine McNicholas…[paywall]
Law360 August 6, 2021 -
Virtually every Econ 101 class teaches the trickle-down myth that workers are paid what they are worth, and locking the minimum wage into national productivity numbers would be a way to finally ensure that claim is true.
This is the figure that would do the most for American workers. As a recent Economic Policy Institute paper found, productivity has increased by over 72% from 1979 to 2019, while worker pay has only increased by 17%.
Business Insider August 6, 2021 -
President Joe Biden and most Democrats have been calling for a drastic increase in the federal minimum wage, to $15 from $7.25. While a handful of states and many prominent companies have taken matters into their own hands, raising their minimum wages well into the double digits, other states are tied to the federal minimum wage, which hasn’t changed since 2009. Where does your state fit in, and are there any changes on the horizon? We examined data from the Economic Policy Institute to find out.
MSN August 6, 2021 -
The closures mark a new, unfortunate, phase in the slow reopening of society. But the reality is that for many people, particularly people of color, working remotely has never been an option. In June, the progressive Economic Policy Institute found that only one in six Latinx workers and one in five Black workers have been able to telework during the pandemic, compared to one in four white workers.
The disparities are even more severe along educational lines. In April, a third of workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher were teleworking. Only one in twenty workers with a high school degree or less were able to do the same.
Mother Jones August 6, 2021 -
Costs in Virginia were already high before the pandemic. In 2019, the Economic Policy Institute said that Virginia ranked No. 10 on the list of states with the most expensive child care. That year the average annual cost of infant care in Virginia was more than $14,000. For a 4-year-old, the annual cost was nearly $11,000.
The Virginian-Pilot August 6, 2021 -
Within the American economy, hourly compensation and the productivity of workers have grown disproportionately. Between 1979-2019, the Economic Policy Institute found, employees have increased productivity by 72%, but their wages have only increased 17% in the last forty years.
Fast Company August 6, 2021 -
August 6, 2021
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Advocates for eradicating right-to-work laws say they degrade the power of organizing. Right-to-work laws “starve unions,” Heidi Shierholz, witness at the hearing and senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, told HR Dive. “They say that [unions] that have to represent all these workers, legally — they have to represent everybody in the bargaining unit — cannot charge for any of those services.”
HR Dive August 6, 2021 -
August 3, 2021, marks Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, and there are a lot of wage-gap statistics you need to know on this day — which highlights the amount of time Black women need to work to earn the same wages as their white male counterparts — include the troubling fact that Black women workers are paid only 68 cents on the dollar relative to white non-Hispanic men, even after controlling for education, years of experience, and location, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And, Black women must work four months longer than white women to earn the same wage. This is not equality.
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“Pay inequity directly touches the lives of Black women in at least three distinct ways,” Valerie Wilson, Janelle Jones, Kayla Blado, and Elise Gould reported on the EPI blog. “Since few Black women are among the top five percent of earners in this country, they have experienced the relatively slow wage growth that characterizes growing class inequality along with the vast majority of other Americans. But in addition to this class inequality, they also experience lower pay due to gender and race bias.”
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Additionally, the EPI reported that “regardless of their connection to the labor market, their level of educational attainment, or their occupation, they are paid less than their white male counterparts. The ongoing gender and racial discrimination faced by Black women means that seven months into 2017, Black women finally have equal pay with what white men earned last year.” The wage gap is not an alternative fact.
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The EPI reported in 2019 that even though white women have increased their hours the most between 1979 and 2016, Black women were already working more in prior years.
The EPI reported that an increase in the numbers of hours worked in response to slow wage growth has largely been among women, and is even higher for Black women.
One myth about Black women at work, and women in general, is that they choose lower-paying careers. In fact, according to the EPI, Black women are often subjected to occupational segregation, and are pushed into jobs mostly populated by other Black women.
Additional, the EPI reported that Black women earn less in every type of job. “While white male physicians and surgeons earn, on average, $18 per hour more than Black women doing the same job, the gap for retail salespersons is also shocking, at more than $9 an hour.”
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There is another myth that is often perpetuated that women could breakthrough the glass ceiling is they had more education. The EPI reported that two-thirds of Black women in the workforce have some postsecondary education, 29.4 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher. However, Black women are still paid less than white men at every level of education.
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“As Black women increase their educational attainment, their pay gap with white men continues to grow,” the EPI noted. “The largest gap, of nearly $17 an hour, occurs for workers with more than a college degree. But even Black women with an advanced degree earn less, slightly more than $7 an hour less, than white men who only have a bachelor’s degree.”
Bustle August 6, 2021