Happy Equal Pay Day, that day every year in when the average woman’s earnings have finally caught up to what her male counterparts made last year. It’s early this year, which is slightly encouraging. Last year it fell on March 24, in 2020 it fell on March 31. This is the earliest it has ever arrived, meaning in the 26 years during which it’s been observed, the pay gap has been closing in tiny increments. Women are still making about 83 cents for every dollar a man makes, on average, for full-time work. The disparities for women of color are even greater.
President Joe Biden marked the incremental achievement in his proclamation of Equal Pay Day. “This year, Equal Pay Day falls on March 15, the earliest we have ever marked the occasion. The earlier that Equal Pay Day arrives, the closer our Nation has come to achieving pay fairness,” Biden’s statement says. “But while we should celebrate the progress we have made, as I have said in the past, we should not be satisfied until Equal Pay Day is no longer necessary at all.”
Vice President Kamala Harris will be hosting a virtual White House meeting to mark the occasion, announcing a series of actions the administration is taking to close both the gender and racial wage gaps where they can—in the federal workplace and for federal contractors. Harris will be joined by members of the US Women’s National Team, who just reached a $24 million agreement in their equal pay dispute with US Soccer.
The administration’s actions include banning the use of prior salary history for hiring and pay-setting across all federal jobs. This new regulation can “help break the cycle of past arbitrary and potentially discriminatory pay that can follow women and workers of color from job to job, entrenching gender and racial pay gaps over time,” the administration said in a fact sheet announcing the measures it’s taking. Biden will also sign an executive order to direct the federal contracting agency “to consider enhancing pay equity and transparency, including by limiting or prohibiting federal contractors from seeking and considering information about job applicants’ and employees’ existing or past compensation when making employment decisions, and appropriate accountability measures.” The administration is also reiterating and reinforcing an existing requirement with federal contractors to conduct annual pay equity audits.
The White House cites a report from the Department of Labor analyzing the concentration of women in low-wage jobs, particularly for women of color. “The report finds that, in 2019, Black women lost $39.3 billion and Hispanic women lost $46.7 billion in wages compared to white men due to differences in industry and occupation. This segregation intensified the COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women, in part due to the overrepresentation of women in hard-hit industries such as hospitality.”
One of the authors of the report, Sarah Jane Glynn, a senior advisor at the Women’s Bureau, told The Washington Post that it is critical to recognize losses have been “largely driven by the experiences of Black and Hispanic women workers,” and that mothers of color have been particularly negatively impacted.
“Women-dominated jobs tend to have fewer caregiving supports and tend to have fewer benefits that can help people to manage those dual responsibilities,” Glynn said. “So many of the jobs that are in women-dominated sectors are poor quality jobs. They offer low pay, which can make paying for care very difficult for those families.”
According to the American Association of University Women, the gap for Native American women is 50 cents to a white man’s dollar; for Latinas, it’s 49 cents—we won’t reach Latina Equal Pay Day until Dec. 8 this year. Asian American and Pacific Islander Women’s Equal Pay Day will be on May 3, but there is great variation among ethnic groups within the AAPI community on pay—women of Taiwanese, Indian, and Chinese descent make more than white males, but many others make far less.
“Women have—particularly women of color—have historically been in jobs overrepresented in sectors where they’re paid less,” a senior administration official told reporters Monday-. “The administration is increasing access to good-paying jobs for women and people of color in sectors where jobs are being created … and where women have historically been underrepresented.”