Janet Napolitano’s recent article in Forbes points to an alarming fact.  Even when we are earning more degrees, men make more.

When the prevailing wisdom is that you need a college degree to “earn the real money”, this is a bit of a kick in the pants.

“Women, especially, have internalized the message that higher education pays. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women make up more than 56% of college students nationwide.”

Read the full article here.

“But here’s the rub. Despite the tremendous educational gains that women have achieved, men still earn higher wages, virtually across the board. Since the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963 – when women earned an average of 59 cents for every dollar paid to a man – the gender pay gap has narrowed by less than half a cent per year, to about 80 cents on the dollar today.”

August 20, 2018

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AAUW Work Smart Kansas City is the first phase of an effort to empower 1 million women to successfully negotiate salary and benefits

CONTACT:

Channing Grate, Women’s Foundation channing@gpsimpact.com
Laura Swinford, Office of the Mayor, laura.swinford@kcmo.org
Amy Becker, AAUW, beckera@aauw.org

KANSAS CITY — The American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the Women’s Foundation today joined Mayor Sly James to announce AAUW Work Smart in Kansas City, the first phase of a large-scale initiative to help close the gender pay gap by empowering 1 million women to successfully negotiate their salary and benefits across Kansas and Missouri.

Beginning with a pilot program in the Kansas City region, AAUW ultimately aims to provide salary and benefits negotiation training through their Work Smart program to more than one-third of the women ages 18-64 in Kansas and Missouri. Once fully implemented, it will be the largest, broadest salary negotiation initiative on record.

“The gender pay gap starts just one year out of college, and the disadvantages escalate over time,” said AAUW CEO Kimberly Churches. “The AAUW Work Smart program empowers women with the skills and confidence they need to negotiate a higher salary and good benefits right out of the gate. We’re thrilled that thanks to the Women’s Foundation and partners like Mayor James we’re able to offer this training to women in the Kansas City region and kick off the largest salary negotiation initiative on record.”

While women nationwide are typically paid 80 percent of what men are paid, women in Missouri and Kansas earn just 78 cents and 77 cents respectively, for every dollar earned by a man. Women of color experience pay gaps that are far wider. Missouri has a wider pay gap than 29 other states while Kansas ranks 37^th.

AAUW Work Smart first launched in Boston in 2015 and has since expanded to Washington, D.C., Tempe, Arizona, San Francisco, and Long Beach, California, as well as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Kansas City is the first AAUW Work Smart collaboration in the Midwest.

“Here in Kansas City we’ve worked hard to create a vibrant, diverse and inclusive economy – where everyone has a fair shot and an equal opportunity to succeed,” said Mayor Sly James. “The Work Smart Program will help build on the successful work we’ve done to break down the barriers women and underrepresented communities face, and help strengthen the financial security of families across the region.”

AAUW Work Smart in Kansas City is being launched with seed funding from the Women’s Foundation and will be offered through a combination of in-person workshops and online learning options (available starting in September 2018). The effort also includes training more than 400 individuals as facilitators in both states. The e-learning tool will also be available in Spanish in the coming months.

The initiative will help to close the gender pay gap, improving the lives of women and their families, increasing consumer spending with local businesses, and increasing local, county, and state tax revenue.

“Women in Kansas and Missouri are still making less than 80 cents of what men are paid – a pay gap that robs them of a small fortune over their lifetimes,” said Wendy Doyle, Women’s Foundation President & CEO. “AAUW’s Work Smart initiative complements the work we’ve done to educate employers and policymakers through our Pay Equity Best Practices, and we’re proud to help bring this valuable resource to the Kansas City region. We thank Mayor James for his partnership and commitment to empowering women and breaking down the barriers to economic opportunity.”

AAUW Work Smart Kansas City builds on efforts by the Women’s Foundation and Mayor James to empower women and break down the barriers that hold them back. In 2015, the Mayor unveiled city government’s blueprint for women’s empowerment, culminating a five-month-long collaboration between the Mayor’s Office, Central Exchange, the Women’s Foundation, and UMKC’s Women’s Center. Earlier this year, Women’s Foundation and the Office of Mayor Sly James were recognized for their collaborative work to increase diversity on local boards and commissions through the Appointments Project.

For more information, interested participants can visit: salary.aauw.org/KSMO

Would you like to work seven extra months for free just to earn the same paycheck as your male co-workers? We didn’t think so. Unfortunately, if you’re a black woman in the United States, that’s a likely reality.

According to Census data, on average, black women were paid 63 percent of what non-Hispanic white men were paid in 2016. That means it takes the typical black woman 19 months to be paid what the average white man takes home in 12 months. That’s even worse than the national earnings ratio for all women, 80 percent, as reported in AAUW’s The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap. This gap persists despite the fact that black women participate in the workforce at much higher rates than most other women.

What contributes to this pay gap?

Intersecting injustice

Black women and girls live at the intersection of sexism and racism. While sexism and racism are distinct forms of discrimination that manifest differently, their effects are compounded when a person experiences both at the same time. Intersectional discrimination perpetuates the racial and gender wealth gaps, limits black women’s access to educational opportunities, and negatively impacts their career advancement.

When it comes to the pay gap and the way it impacts different groups of women, an intersectional analysis is necessary for seeing the whole picture.

Wealth gap

The wealth gap can help us to understand why black women’s earnings are so far behind those of both white men and white women. In 2013 the median white household had 13 times the wealth (“wealth” refers to total assets minus debts) of the median black household — specifically, the median white household had about $134,000 to the median black household’s $11,000.

The wealth gap black families experience can be traced back to such historic injustices as slavery, segregation, redlining (the practice of differentiating areas of a city or town by race, often leading to the denial of necessary goods and services to people who live in those areas), unequal access to government programs like welfare and the GI Bill, and ongoing institutionalized and systematic discrimination. This disparity in wealth spans generations and perpetuates unequal pay and diminished opportunities, decreasing the amount of resources black families can devote to education and career advancement.

Occupational segregation

Looking at industry also helps us understand some of the gap — but not all of it. Black women are more likely to work in lower-paying service occupations (like food service, domestic work, and health care assistance) than any other industry and less likely to work in the higher-paying engineering and tech fields or managerial positions.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the percentage of black women who are full-time minimum-wage workers is higher than that of any other racial group. To make matters worse, there’s an even bigger pay gap in the service industry, where women make less per week than women working full-time across all occupations. That’s why a livable minimum wage is crucial to all women (who make up two-thirds of tipped workers), and especially black women. In addition to being overrepresented at the low-paying end of the spectrum, black women are underrepresented at the top. Black women make up a scant 1 percent of the high-paying engineering workforce and 3 percent of computing. And these, unfortunately, are the fields where the gender pay gap is the smallest. Among the few black women who do break into these careers, discriminatory pay and promotion practices drive many out.

Education

While education is often thought of as a great equalizer, it does not shield women of color from the pay gap or the wealth gap. Recent research by Demos found that the median white adult who dropped out of high school has 70 percent more wealth than the median black adult with some college education. That means relying on education alone to close the pay gap alone will not work for women, especially black women, who trail behind in terms of wealth no matter how closely they follow societal guidelines of how to earn more and be successful.

Given the barriers black women face in being admitted to college, paying for college, and managing student loans, higher education can seem like a massive undertaking without any guaranteed future benefit.

Equal Pay Helps Everyone

The pay and wealth disparities black women do not only affect individual women, but also the people around them. Since 80 percent of black mothers are the sole or primary breadwinners for their households, a fair salary can mean the difference between struggling and sustainability for a family.

Paying all workers fairly means more wage earners can support the people relying on them while also contributing to and further improving the economy. True pay equity requires a multipronged strategy that addresses both the gendered and racialized injustices that black women face every day.

What Can You Do?

1. Get the facts and share them. The pay gap is no myth, and the more people are empowered with the data to back it up, the sooner we can close the gap.

2. Negotiate for the salary and benefits you deserve. Sign up to attend or even host an AAUW Work Smart salary negotiation workshop.

3. Take action for equal pay! Tell Congress to close the pay gap by passing key pieces of federal fair pay legislation.

4. Check the status of equal pay laws in your state and advocate for policies needed to close the pay gap by following our state road maps!

This post was originally written by Communications Manager of Advancement, Fellowships, and Programs Kathryn Bibler. It was updated by Research Assistant Raina Nelson in 2018.