Latina Equal Pay Day almost didn’t happen in 2022. Here’s why.
Today is Latina Equal Pay Day in the U.S. It’s not a day of celebration but instead a day that marks how far into the new year Latinas must work to match what the average white, non-Hispanic man earned the year before. Of the seven Equal Pay Days that are recognized in the U.S., Latina Equal Pay Day is the latest one on the calendar this year, adding up to an extra 341 days that Latinas would have to work in order to earn what white males did last year. Mónica Ramírez, a leader of the national campaign, tells MAKERS it’s a day that almost didn’t happen in 2022. That’s because when Latina Equal Pay Day was calculated this spring, the data from the previous years reflected a 49 cent pay gap to the dollar for Latina employees which would have pushed the day into 2023. “We could not let a year go by that we are not observing this reality, that Latinas are being far underpaid,” says Ramírez. “So we set the date as December to make sure that we would observe it in this calendar year.”
Ramírez is the founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women and a civil rights attorney who has spent the past two decades fighting against gender-based discrimination such as wage gaps. Ramírez says when the U.S. Census Bureau released new earnings data in September, it showed full-time, year-round and part-time Latina workers now earn 54 cents for every dollar that white, non-Hispanic men earn. While this number does reflect an increase, she says it’s the same number as when she first started leading the Latina Equal Pay Day campaign eight years ago. “We've seen that number go up and down, but we haven't seen significant meaningful change in the workplace to make things better for Latino workers.”
THE PANDEMIC EFFECT
Latina workers’ income took a serious dive when COVID hit. “More than a million Latino workers were pushed out of the workforce and that was a larger number than any other demographic of workers that lost their jobs during the pandemic,” Ramírez says. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Latinas experienced a 23% decline in employment during the pandemic. It was the highest employment decline among Black, white and women workers overall. This was driven, in part, because of the large number of Latinas working in the hospitality and food service industries. These types of jobs typically involve direct contact with people and when lockdowns were put in place, businesses were forced to limit their hours or shut down completely. Without the option to work remotely, many of those employees found themselves out of a job. At the same time, schools and day care businesses were closing, forcing many women to leave work and assume the primary caregiving responsibilities.
Even as Latinas are now starting to return to the workforce, Ramírez says that they still face an uphill battle. “It’s important for people to recognize that Latinas were already behind going into the pandemic, and the pandemic only put Latinas even further behind,” she says. “As Latinas are returning to work, it's critical that we make sure that Latinas are returning to jobs that are paying them at the same rate that they were earning before the pandemic, that the conditions, the benefits, the treatment, that they are the same, if not better, in these new jobs they're returning to.”
STEPS TOWARD EQUITY
When asked what steps need to be taken to start closing the wage gap for Latinas, Ramírez first points to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. “There's a growing number of single household families that are headed by Latinas in this country. There are many pregnant Latinas who are being affected by pregnancy discrimination, and we need this bill to be passed in the Senate so that pregnant workers can have more rights and get the reasonable accommodations that they need to be able to keep their jobs.” The bill — which has already passed in the U.S. House of Representatives — would provide basic benefits to pregnant workers, such as additional bathroom breaks, exemption from heavy lifting and the option to sit during a shift. Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray recently pushed for passage of the bill, saying, “It is unconscionable that people who are looking forward to having a new family member are hearing that their lives will be upturned all because their employers refuse to provide basic accommodations. This is a commonsense, bipartisan bill that will make sure that no one is forced to choose between a job and their pregnancy.”
Another way to improve income disparities is to simply start talking about it more, Ramírez says. “As a greater society, we need to start changing the conversation about pay and talking about the need for pay transparency,” she says. “We need to take away this idea that we need to be hush-hush about things like earnings because it's too private. It is that cloud of privacy that's allowed employers to continue to discriminate against millions and millions of women.”
Creating real change for Latina workers in this country will take time and effort. But Ramírez says it all starts with companies doing the right thing. “There isn't a single solution here when it comes to closing this pay gap. We need companies to change their practice. Whether or not there's a law in place, they need to pay people fairly,” she says. In the meantime, Ramírez says she is encouraged by the number of those who are joining the fight for justice. “We have seen huge numbers of people who are linking arms with us, raising their voices to speak out against this injustice, and really thinking as partners and allies about what we can do together to address it. Because people understand this isn't a problem that just impacts an individual Latino worker. It impacts our families. It impacts our entire communities.”
