Equal Pay Day

This year on Equal Pay Day, women are facing the dual burden of gender-based pay discrimination and increasing inflation. On average, American women not only had to work until today to make as much money as men after earning 82 cents on the dollar last year¹ but their earnings also did not go as far due to rising inflation. After the “she-cession”, a term coined to describe unequal impact of the pandemic-related business restrictions that fell heaviest on industries that employ women at higher rates than men, women now struggle against “she-flation.”²

That’s why Amalgamated Bank joins President Biden’s call on the US congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. Inequality from wage discrimination deepened over the last two years as women’s labor force participation and incomes declined with the greatest impact felt by immigrant women, women in low-wage jobs, and women of color. Black women, native women, and Latina women experience this inequality at extreme levels. Estimates show they earn about $0.60 per dollar earned by white men on average.³ At current rates, the wage gap isn’t expected to close until 2111 without corporate leadership and policy change.⁴  If enacted, the Paycheck Fairness Act would give women a shot at equal pay which has never been more important than now.

Amalgamated Bank pledged to take a role in the fight against pay discrimination in 2016 and continues to lead the banking industry and larger business community by example.⁵ We were the first bank to raise our minimum wage to $20 an hour for all full-time employees and enforce pay transparency non-discrimination with all our contractors.⁶ Our commitment to pay parity across the company includes a third-party pay equity audit every three years that is designed to detect and correct pay disparities based on gender and race. This is just one area where we join and empower organizations to fight for economic justice including #EqualPay.