Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is Recognized

WASHINGTON, DC – Recently, Walker’s Legacy, a professional collective committed to the empowerment of women of color in business and entrepreneurship, recognizes African American Women’s Equal Pay Day. Despite substantial gains in education, the National Committee for Pay Equity reports that Black women only earn 60 cents to a man’s dollar while women, in general, earn 78 cents.
This means that as it stands, Black women must work a year and eight months just to earn what their White male counterparts earn in a twelve-month year.

African American Women’s Equal pay day highlights the substantial discrimination and challenges this group of women experience in their professional lives. These challenges – such as a lack of workplace support and racially-based pay discrimination – stretch to the overall lack of resources for working or entrepreneurial Black women and their families. These families are disproportionately single-parent led, despite the fact that more than one-third are led by working mothers.

More specifically:
* Black women have historically and presently, had a higher labor participation rate than the national average at 59.9% versus the 56.4% rate of White, non-Hispanic women.

* Black women earn 66% of bachelor’s degrees, 71% of master’s degrees, and 65% of all doctorate degrees awarded to Black students

* Despite this level of academic attainment, research finds that black women earn $2 less per hour than their male counterparts.

* Women-owned firms make up 28% of the 2.71 million businesses in the US.  While minorities own 21.3% of businesses. Yet, women do not have adequate access to financial capital in comparison to their White counterparts, halting the opportunity for growth and job opportunities.

* Black women are a part of the fastest growing entrepreneurial segments in the country growing at rates of 133.3% and 191.4% respectively from 1997 to 2007, and are five times more likely to start a business than their male counterparts.

* “Black women are disproportionately affected by the barriers associated with the gender pay gap. We know that economic equality is achievable for this community of  women, in 2016, despite making major ground in education, it is simply unacceptable that gender and race inequity cost Black women eight months of pay each year” said Natalie M. Cofield, Founder and CEO, Walker’s Legacy. “Our work is committed to the empowerment and success of women, and today we note the charge to continue to do more to ensure that progress is made.”

The work of Walker’s Legacy and the Walker’s Legacy Foundation focuses primarily on directly addressing these statistics by creating networks of support, resources and business education that s, multicultural women of need to  become successful leaders in business and entrepreneurship. Through localized and online networks, educational content, and targeted programming, Walker’s Legacy and its Foundation engages and empowers a thousands of women of color in business.