(The Center Square) – Black women, says a North Carolina congresswoman, “work twice as hard to get half as far.”
And the inequity, says Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., is staggering.
She introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday the Black Women’s Equal Pay Day Resolution, seeking to make it the Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. Adams says Black women nworking full-time, year-round make 64 cents to each dollar of a non-Hispanic white man.
“Today we recognize the staggering wage inequity Black women face and recommit ourselves to addressing this injustice,” Adams said. “For too long, Black women have been forced to work twice as hard to get half as far, facing steep barriers, discrimination, and lack of opportunity to succeed. We cannot afford to wait 200 years to be paid what we’re owed. I’m proud to introduce this resolution and continue our fight for wage equity in America.”
Sponsoring with her are fellow Democratic Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández and Lois Frankel of Florida; and Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware is pushing the effort in the upper chamber.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates and chairwoman of the Equal Pay Today Campaign, in a statement said, “This resolution acknowledges that Black women continue to be underpaid, undervalued, and overrepresented in low paid jobs. Millions of working women nationwide join the call for long overdue and commonsense policy reforms that let Black women care for their families, build economic security and wealth, and advance at work.”
