A Demand for Racial and Gender Pay Equity

We ask that companies report median gender and racial pay data across their workforce. African American women working full-time earn just 62% of what men make, and Latinx women, only 54%.1 At the current rate of improvement it will be more than a century until African American women reach pay parity with men, and more than two hundred years for Latinx women.2 This isn’t just a crime against the black and brown women of our nation, it is also an economic disaster. The World Economic Forum estimates that the gender pay gap costs the United States $1.2 trillion dollars annually.3

We also ask that companies do more to ensure that women, especially non-white women have access to the same jobs at the same rates that men do. A 2018 McKinsey study showed that companies with the most gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to perform better than their industry average, than companies with the least gender diversity. The difference is even more stark for ethnic and racial diversity. The same study showed a 33% improvement from more ethnically and racially diverse teams over less diverse teams.4

Racial and gender median pay gap transparency and more equitable access to all jobs will lead to better outcomes for companies, for shareholders, for our economy, and most importantly, for workers and their families. We urge companies to take action today.

1 https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2020/03/24/482141/quick-facts-gender-wage-gap/

2 https://iwpr.org/publications/pay-equity-projection-race-ethnicity-2019/

3 https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/25/news/economy/economic-gender-gap-wef/index.html

4 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity