SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) — Latina Equal Pay Day, the day Latinas catch up to the earnings White, non-Hispanic men made last year, is being observed on Oct. 21, 2021.
Latinas earn just 57 cents on average for every dollar earned by their white male counterparts — the widest gap of any major ethnic group.
They must work nearly 23 months to earn what white men earn in 12 months.
A Latina would need to work until she is nearly 90 years old to make the same amount that a white man earned by age 60, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
And over the last year, the pandemic made the wage gap even worse.
Before the pandemic, 15.2% of adult Latinas lived in poverty in 2019. That rate worsened to 16.8% in 2020.
At its peak in April 2020, the unemployment rate for Latinas reached 20.1% and remained in the double digits for six months before finally declining.
While the unemployment rate for Latinas was 5.6% in September 2021, Latinas are more than 1.3-times more likely than white men to be unemployed.
Latina workers have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis and were disproportionately affected.
Nearly three in 10 Latinas (28.4%) have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis compared to 12.6% of white, non-Hispanic men, yet are still paid less than them, according to the NWLC.
“This means that as we have relied on their labor during a public health crisis, Latinas on the front lines of
the pandemic have been underpaid,” a statement on the NWLC website reads, in part.
But even as the world tries to recover and go back to the way things were pre-pandemic, that’s not the case for many Latinas, who don’t want to go back to being paid 57 cents on the dollar.
President Joe Biden and other U.S. leaders talked about the wage gap.
“We must close this gap,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said. “I’m going to keep pushing for Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.”
Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez went so far to say not only is the gap unequal, but that it’s “unjust, cruel and unacceptable.”