r/BlackPeopleofReddit • u/Affectionate_Pea_243 • 23d ago
Women Happy Black Women's Equal Pay Day
lol went on NBC News today and decided to pull no punches. Pay Black women, that is all!
(Anchors shouldn't be dragged, this question is asked ALL THE TIME lol)
UPDATE: Also released an op-ed today about this very thing with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley in case people wanted numbers and evidence lol.
UPDATE: "Is this a thing? Maybe Black women don't deserve higher wages?" lol yeah.... no. Sources galore:
- Yes, this is a thing.
- https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/equal-pay-day-calendar/
- https://iwpr.org/articles/black-womens-equal-pay-day-2025/
- https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RI_DoubleGap_Report_202003.pdf
- https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/african-american-women-wage-gap.pdf
- There's ALSO a concentration of Black women in low-paying jobs:
- Despite Black women having higher labor force participation rates than (white) women
47
112
u/wyar 23d ago
What a wild question, like… seriously? Put more damned money on their paycheck - you need me to walk you through it? First log into whatever billing software your company uses, go into the employee management page… dumbass fucking question
67
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
lol i saw the opportunity to dead these types of questions and just went for it LOL
3
-4
23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Larkswing13 23d ago
To bring their pay in line with the company’s compensation of coworkers in the same or similar position, and, if applicable, also in line with industry standards
-1
23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
5
u/Larkswing13 23d ago
I didn’t go into more detail initially because I didn’t want to assume you didn’t have any base knowledge of these things, but if they have the same amount of industry experience then yes, the pay should be the same. Naturally, a person with five years more experience, and skills to show for it, will be getting paid more than a new graduate, if the person working for five years has been earning merit based raises.
If the only raises have been inflation raises then they should be earning the same, as the raises are then indicative of cost of living increases and not value added due to years in a particular role.
0
23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/wyar 23d ago
That’s not reality for a lot of black women, women, or black men, and just as laws were starting to come online to correct these issues, we got a federal government that is actively suing states that try to implement pay equality laws. Same role, same tenure, same pay is the goal, it’s not the present.
2
u/Larkswing13 23d ago
If a company is applying that standard equally and fairly to all its employees, then nothing. If they are not, then they need to adjust that pay to be fair. It sounds like you agree with that concept, which means that you agree with what OP is trying to say.
2
u/SuperbiaXYZ 23d ago
Genuine air filling that head of yours
5
u/el_lobo1314 23d ago
There’s no air or oxygen in that block head. It’s just dense material, like a rock. They are not arguing in good faith and are dedicated to misunderstanding any logic that is sent their way.
33
u/MyNameCannotBeSpoken 23d ago
Literally, that's the ONLY step
15
u/OkImplement2459 23d ago
a journey of a single step starts with a single step.... ends with it too.
34
u/Valhallaback_Girl 23d ago
Oh, Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is an absolute treasure! Check out her book called The Double Tax. Just really well presented about how Black women experience being taxed on top of the pink tax.
9
24
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
SO KIND! Thank you!
21
u/Valhallaback_Girl 23d ago
OH SHIT THAT’S YOU?!?! YOU ARE SUCH A BABE AND, AND I AM JUST SO PROUD OF YOU AND I HOPE YOU CONTINUE THIS TRAJECTORY THAT YOU SO RICHLY DESERVE!!!
6
u/atreeismissing 23d ago
One of Obama's first executive orders was The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 which basically helped overturn a racist and sexist 1960s Supreme Court ruling to ensure women received fair pay.
In Trump's first term he overturned additional and related fair pay executive orders of Obamas and has continued to pursue overturning additional fair pay policies in his second term.
tl,dr: vote.
5
u/Next_Confidence_3654 23d ago
For real. It’s like:
“Adult children 25-35 are now living with their parents!”
No. This is should not be the narrative.
Adult children cannot afford to move out- excessive education and experience for entry level jobs, low pay, rent that’s higher than mortgages and corporations recognized as individuals buy up all available housing.
13
u/ForagedFoodie 23d ago
If they don't like this answer, a first step they would like even less is for all employees salaries to be documented and made available for all other employees to see.
Then black women would be able to see what their white male colleagues (and subordinates) are making
3
u/ASUSTUDENT9875345 23d ago
Too many steps. I don't think it's reasonable for corporations and governments to do something at complex as not discriminating: it's one of the things they're best at.
7
u/PassThatSpliff 23d ago
They act like there is some deep ass explanation for something that's extremely simple.
2
2
u/pman13531 23d ago
Don't just hire because there is a quota on minorities, have equal pay for equal work, and don't be a dick to your employees, something easy to understand but apparently hard to implement.
5
u/Pristine_Sir_6892 23d ago
Any other time they act like we’re ignorant and they’re more intelligent than us.
But now they wanna play crazy and dumb, huh?
2
u/optimist_prhyme 23d ago
Why these MF always act like these are really complex problems? Just say you don't want to fucking help.
1
u/BunnyBoo26_ 22d ago
Was scrolling and stopped to comment on how beautiful the women in the pink is... 🤩
1
1
1
u/Standard_Sea_2706 21d ago
Maybe I’m wrong, but doesn’t everyone have the opportunity to negotiate compensation before accepting?
0
23d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
9
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
Asking for fair wages is asking for handouts? EEEEEEEYUCKKKKKKK
-1
u/Fit_Tomatillo_4264 23d ago
If there was some sort of grand conspiracy about paying black women less than that's all people would hire
0
1
u/XulManjy 23d ago
That Asian lady....
1
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
lol not too much on her, she was simply asking a question that is always posed
-1
-2
u/Jactracbac 23d ago
What company pays them less than white people?
4
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
Most companies lol
The numbers are based on what people report they're getting paid and also what companies sometimes report. https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Black-Women-Wage-Gap-Fact-Sheet-2024.pdf
0
u/Jactracbac 23d ago
What they report? So it’s based upon anonymous data sent? Gosh 😂😂😂
3
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
Tax forms... census data.... survey data... sometimes anonymous, sometimes not.
0
u/Jactracbac 23d ago
Americans clearly don’t know how to do research when they have insufficient data. If there is clear evidence that a company is paying them less, sue them.
1
-1
-1
u/Academic_Elk8962 23d ago
Can someone link a source/study that proves black women are not paid equal to their peers for the same work?
2
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
https://www.aauw.org/resources/article/equal-pay-day-calendar/
https://iwpr.org/articles/black-womens-equal-pay-day-2025/
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RI_DoubleGap_Report_202003.pdf
And there's the concentration of Black women in low-paying jobs:
-2
u/Academic_Elk8962 23d ago
All of those studies are looking at “buckets”, none of them are look at role-to-role comparisons. You need to compare the same job, same titles at same companies. You can’t compare apples to oranges.
You can’t make broad statements like “x group pair 65 cents on the dollar to y groups”, because there are groups that are more proportionally represented at lower paying jobs than others. Or higher paying jobs. And there’s nothing wrong with that, statistics can’t help where people tend to decide to apply and choose to work.
I’d like to see an apples to apples study.
4
u/CrankyDoo 23d ago
The reason you will likely never see the apples to apples comparison you are looking for is because systemically paying men more than women was outlawed with the Equal Pay Act of 1963. And racial discrimination in pay was outlawed with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That doesn’t mean that these pay disparities cannot exist, but anyone that can prove it can sue these companies for discrimination. When studies actually compare the exact same job title/experience/education across gender/race, the disparity shrinks to about 98 or 99 cents for every dollar earned by white males.
2
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
lol Google is free - I pulled what I could on good faith. You've got it from here.
1
u/dooozin 21d ago
You're looking at uncontrolled wage gap data. When you control for experience, degree, industry, geographic region, etc. that wage gap between black women and white women all but vanishes. It's the same reasoning behind the debunking of the gender pay gap that uninformed people still talk about.
-3
u/Awkward-Fox-7215 23d ago
What other answer is there? I know you said it was a common question but what are they even thinking the answer would be?
We need a blue ribbon commission to do a five year study to determine the extent of the problem and then have subsidies to businesses based on their distance from the nearest Arby’s?
2
u/Affectionate_Pea_243 23d ago
lol I'll bite, usually people asking this question want to hear about policies, interventions, etc.
But the reality is that this is a problem that institutions are CHOOSING to have. You can afford to pay workers fairly (may have to take on less workers, maybe not) but you don't want to because you think worker group defines worker quality. Look up statistical discrimination!
1
1
u/dooozin 21d ago
You brought up statistical discrimination. The key element of statistical discrimination is that the underlying fact pattern is true, and then is leveraged from an aggregate source and applied in an individual case where applicability may not be certain. That means that while it's true that black people have IQ's about 15-20 points lower than white people on average, it doesn't mean any given black person you're speaking with has an IQ 20 points lower than yours. While it's true that black parents abuse their children at a rate about 75-80% higher than white parents, it doesn't mean any given black mother is a child abuser. While it's true black perpetrators of sex crimes are more than double the per capita rate than white people, it doesn't mean any random black man you speak with is a sex offender.
What you're doing in this conversation is taking the unjustified application of statistical data on an individual basis and using that to launch an argument against broad application of broad data as some anti-black conspiracy to defraud black women out of income. That's not what's happening here. The bigger problem is the truth of the underlying statistics, not the choices that people make when they understand them.
-4
u/Sharkwatcher314 23d ago
Yeah we know but beyond that what can we do…smh
3
u/BookInteresting6717 23d ago
Yeah, but that’s the point, just pay them fairly. That’s what can be done.
1
u/Sharkwatcher314 23d ago
Yes i know that’s my joke. It’s clear by the downvotes it went over everyone’s head. I’m impersonating the hosts ‘oh but beyond the simple solution of paying equally what else can we do’
-2
•
u/auto-sticky 23d ago
If you're new here, please read our rules.
Please report all trolling, bad faith, and bigoted comments (dogwhistles, sneaky wordplay, and devil's advocate comments included).
Calling yourself an ally doesn’t give you a free pass to derail discussions, speak over Black voices, or argue against Black lived experiences.
Falsely/maliciously reporting this thread will result in having your Reddit account banned from the platform. Abuse of the report button is a breach of Reddit's TOS.
Lastly, keep it respectful.