Waiting for an Equal Pay Champion

The GOP's attack on equal pay will set back black working women even further.

U.S. News & World Report

Waiting for an Equal Pay Champion

Don't hold her back.(Getty Images)

Last summer, Ivanka Trump promised that her father would fight for equal pay for women. Yet six months into Donald Trump's presidency, a groundbreaking equal pay initiative is in the crosshairs, under assault by Republicans in Congress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

For decades, large employers have been required to confidentially report the race and gender makeup of their workforces within major occupation categories to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – the federal agency responsible for enforcing laws against discrimination at work. And in 2016, the Obama administration announced an expansion of that reporting: a new requirement that large companies start confidentially reporting what they pay their employees by occupational category, sex, race and ethnicity.

But because of the race and gender wage gaps that persist across occupation and industry, corporate special interests are desperate to keep pay hidden from scrutiny. That's why the Chamber of Commerce has asked the Trump administration to rescind the new equal pay reporting requirement. And it's why Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment that would block this initiative to an important bill on a party-line vote – a shameful move against equal pay, transparency and fairness. That bill will soon come to the House floor for a vote.

All of this has many of us asking, when exactly will the fight for equal pay that Ivanka promised begin? To be sure, the president seems an unlikely equal pay champion, given the wide-ranging assaults on labor and civil rights protections his administration has launched. Yet, if anything should kick the fight for equal pay into high gear, it is the startling data on the wages black women are paid: Black women working full time, year-round are paid only 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men – a gap significantly larger than the overall gender wage gap of 20 cents. As a result, black women will typically have to work 19 months – until July 31, Black Women's Equal Pay Day – to make as much white, non-Hispanic men made in the previous 12-month calendar year. That means they stand to lose more than $800,000 to the race and gender wage gap over the course of their career.

And no matter how you slice the numbers, inequality persists. Among cashiers and retail salespeople, black women are paid 53 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. Among janitors, cleaners, maids and housekeepers, it's 64 cents. On the other side of the income spectrum, in highly paid occupations – jobs that typically pay about $100,000 annually or more – black women, again, make 64 cents on the dollar. In other words, this can't be explained away by credentials or job choice.

Pay discrimination is a big driver of this gap. Gender and racial stereotypes – both conscious and unconscious – infect pay decisions again and again. A sobering 2012 study, for example, found that science professors who were given otherwise identical applications for a lab manager position proposed an average starting salary of $30,200 when the applicant was named John, compared to $26,500 when the applicant was named Jennifer. Another recent study found that while black job-seekers negotiated at the same rate as white job-seekers, they were perceived to be "pushier," which resulted in lower starting salaries. The intersection of these stereotypes hits black women hard.

Cartoons on President Donald Trump

None of this should come as a surprise to the many black women who answered activist Brittany Packnet's call to share stories of everyday discrimination under the #BlackWomenAtWork hashtag. The hashtag went viral earlier this year as black women made visible the large and small ways they are undermined at work, ultimately translating into lower pay and fewer opportunities.

The subtle and not so subtle drivers of pay discrimination persist because they are so difficult to ferret out. If you don't know you are being paid less than the new guy with less experience who works across the hall, you can't challenge it. But pay is typically cloaked in secrecy, and so unjustified race and gender pay disparities grow unchecked in many workplaces.

That is why the new, expanded report Republicans aim to block is so critical. It will encourage companies to not only identify and correct pay disparities, but also prevent them in the first place by proactively evaluating their pay practices. It will allow the EEOC to see which employers have race and gender pay gaps that differ significantly from the pay patterns of their industry peers, allowing it to scrutinize those employers more closely. Equally important, reporting pay data will also ensure that employers are measuring their own race and gender wage gaps – an important step along the path for employers seeking to prevent and address unjustified pay disparities.

The fate of this critical equal pay initiative hangs in the balance, and the next few weeks will likely be decisive. If it is blocked, it will send a message to employers that it is fine to hide pay discrimination under the rug, harming women and people of color across the country. And it will set black women at work even further back.

The Trump administration has so far been silent on where it stands on the equal pay report initiative. This Black Women's Equal Pay Day, the effort deserves a champion in the White House.