In the 21st century, in the richest nation on earth, some people are still struggling to make ends meet. African American men make an average of $0.87 for every dollar a White man earns, and Latinos come in at $0.91. It gets worse when we factor in gender: Black women make $0.62 cents to the White man’s dollar, Latinas $0.54, and Native American women $0.57. Additionally, unemployment, student loan debt, and poverty hit communities of color harder.
Studies of income disparity show the outcomes you’d pretty much expect: lower physical and mental health scores, higher crime rates, and lower life expectancy. But even if you didn’t care about these things (in which case you should probably not be reading my blog), there’s another result that does affect you: it harms our overall economic growth. It’s also harmful to democracy, as a small group wields increasing financial power, political influence, and control.
In other words, while we may not be aware of it in our everyday lives, the fact that there are segments of our population being underpaid makes things worse for all of us. It may sound corny, but the suffering of one is, in fact, the suffering of all.
But what can we do to address these pay gaps? It’s a tough question, and it comes with an unfair burden on some of us. The first thing I encourage my clients to do is to learn to negotiate for a higher salary. (That’s a good skill to have in any case, to be fair.) This is especially true for people who have traditionally been underpaid: trans folks, women, those who are black or brown, people with visible disabilities. Next, ask your employer (if you have one) to conduct a pay gap analysis that includes both gender identity and ethnicity. Finally, post your salary information on sites like Glass Door, and do some comparisons on Payscale.com and Salary.com. If you find you’re being underpaid, it will hurt but you will know. (You might need to find a career counselor or coach at that point to figure out how to negotiate.) And if you find out that a colleague is being underpaid, share what you’ve learned!