Black Women’s Equal Pay Day 2023

The Office of Equity & Engagement is committed to helping educate, promote and improve the lives of our campus community. One of the ways we strive to do this is by bringing awareness to the importance of equity and equality based issues such as the fact that According to the National Women’s Law Center “Among full-time, year-round workers, Black women typically make only 67 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. This wage gap will typically cost Black women $1,891 per month, $22,692 per year, and $907,680 over a 40-year career.” This is one among the countless reasons that as a BIPOV Woman of Color in America that I feel compelled to do the work that I do. Schoolcraft College and the Office of Equity are working hard on measures to help eradicate these types of injustices. 

These continued discriminatory practices cause serious harm and damage to Women of Color on a daily, national and global scale. According to the Center for American Progress “The stubborn resilience of the gender wage gap, coupled with intersecting racial bias in the workplace, means that many women of color are perpetually underpaid, and these losses accumulate and grow over time. As a result, women of color are less able to build savings, withstand economic downturns, and achieve some measure of economic stability. The U.S. census data released last September confirmed that the harshest effects of the gender wage gap continue to fall on women of color, with many of them experiencing the largest gender pay gaps among all workers. It is long overdue for the federal government to pursue measures that strengthen equal pay protections, combat bias, and promote worker retention—especially among women workers—which are all critical to reducing economic inequality and securing economic stability for women of color and their families.”