Each year, Equal Pay Day is recognized world-wide to bring greater awareness to the racial and gender pay disparities. In the United States, the April date symbolically marks how far into a new year the average woman must work to earn as much as the average white man did in the previous year.

Women still face an average wage gap of almost 20%, and many women of color face much larger gaps. That is why the Equal Pay Day Chicago coalition announces that we will hold Chicago’s 2020 rally to end the gender wage gap on the last equal pay day observed in 2020—Latina Equal Pay Day on October 29th—rather than on March 31st when Equal Pay Day, marking the average gap for women, is observed nationally.

With this move, we recognize that we will not close/ the gender wage gap until every woman is compensated with equal pay for equal work. While on average, women earn 82 cents for every dollar white men earn, women of color routinely experience much wider wage gaps due to the compounding effects of gender and racial discrimination, and in recent years, some of those gaps have widened. Asian American and Pacific Islander women make an average of 90 cents for every dollar paid to white men, but some ethnic subgroups make as little as 50 cents. Black women make 62 cents. Native women make 57 cents. And Latinas make just 54 cents for every dollar paid to white men. It takes more than 22 months of work on average for Latinas to earn what white men do in 12.

In Chicago and Cook County, where women of color hold the five highest elected offices—Mayor, Treasurer, City Clerk, President of the County Board, and County Clerk—as well as having women of color serving as the state’s lieutenant governor and comptroller—we are proud to center the experiences of women of color in the pay equity conversation.

Join us! Equal Pay Day Chicago is both a focal point to raise awareness of pay equality, and a platform for organizations to collaborate across the state. We invite you to be a part of this effort.