Latinas in the US could lose 1.3 million dollars in 40 years due to the wage gap

Latinas in the United States could lose around 1.3 million dollars in 40 years of working life due to the gender gap that still persists in the country, which caused this group to earn only 58 cents for every dollar paid in 2023. to non-Hispanic white men, reveals a report from the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC).

“This means that (Hispanic women in the US) lose about $32,000 a year due to the wage gap,” explained the NWLC Labor Justice expert, Diana Ramírez, who also insisted that this difference implies that these women will stop receiving money that they could use in “an emergency, their retirement, their children’s education, their house or an inheritance for the future.”

Specifically, Latinas with full-time jobs lost an average of $2,672 per month in 2023, which multiplies by $32,070 per year, an amount that could have paid for a full year of rent, childcare, and several months of food. . “They could be a lifeline for Latinas and their families.”

“In total, the wage gap could cost a Latina worker approximately $1.3 million over her 40-year career,” says the text, published on the occasion of Equal Pay Day for Latinas being celebrated this Thursday in the US. either Latina Equal Pay Day.

This event serves to shed light on the salary disparity that hits one of the most powerful and fastest growing in the countryand which is a clear reflection of the economic obstacles faced to varying degrees by the entire female workforce in the country.

University women are worse off

The gap is even greater if women have university studies, said Ramírez, who highlighted that “having a higher education does not guarantee that Latinas will not be victims of the wage gap,” on the contrary, in these cases it could increase by 1. 3 to 2.9 million dollars over a working life of at least four decades.

“And this is because the non-Hispanic white man who has higher education is paid more. He is simply paid more,” insisted the expert from the NWLC, a Washington-based NGO that advocates for women’s rights.

In the case of some communities of Hispanic women, this difference is exacerbated. In 2023, Honduran and Guatemalan women only received 47 and 48 cents respectively compared to their non-Hispanic white counterparts. The Salvadoran ones (51 cents) and the Mexican ones (54 cents) also stand out on this list.

The annual losses for these nationalities are between 36,883 and 31,784 dollars, according to the report’s figures.

Latina women, along with other minorities of color, are “overrepresented” in the tipped workforce in the United States, making them more likely to live near or below the poverty line compared to their male counterparts and women. non-Hispanic whites, the NWLC indicates in previous research.

This coincides with another study by the NGO, which places Hispanic women among the majorities with the 40 lowest paying jobs of the country.

“The most common reason that explains this wage gap is absolute discrimination. It is the systematic undervaluation of women’s work. We see this with the minimum wage at the federal level, which has not been increased in the last 15 years. And the majority of The people who work in those positions that are paid the minimum wage are women, women of color,” the NWLC expert warned.

To make this inequity visible, Equal Pay Day for Latinas is observed every year in the US, which although the date varies, does not change its essence.

Organizations such as the National Women’s Law Center, along with other allies, try to raise awareness among the general public, but above all national and state legislators; on the need to raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour with support for the Raise the Wage Act of 2023.

“What we are doing at the NWLC to close this wage gap is promoting policies that support unions. Our statistics show that when women are part of a union, they have more benefits and higher salaries,” Ramirez said.

The Labor Justice specialist added that they also promote “salary transparency laws, which require employers to publish the salary range in job advertisements. “We are also supporting increases in the minimum wage so that women in those positions earn more and can support their families,” he concluded.

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