From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Latina Workers Have to Work Nearly 11 Months into 2019 to Be Paid the Same as White Non-Hispanic Men in 2018
Date December 5, 2019 4:04 AM
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[ Since Hispanic women continue to be over-represented in low-wage
jobs, policies that lift wages at the bottom will have a significant
impact on their wages. A Federal minimum wage increase to $15 would
affect nearly one in three Latina workers.] [[link removed]]

LATINA WORKERS HAVE TO WORK NEARLY 11 MONTHS INTO 2019 TO BE PAID THE
SAME AS WHITE NON-HISPANIC MEN IN 2018  
[[link removed]]

 

Elise Gould
November 19, 2019
Economic Policy Institute
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_ Since Hispanic women continue to be over-represented in low-wage
jobs, policies that lift wages at the bottom will have a significant
impact on their wages. A Federal minimum wage increase to $15 would
affect nearly one in three Latina workers. _

May Day protesters demand the raising of the minimum wage to $15 per
hour, Chicago, 2014. , (Charles Miller)

 

November 20 is Latina Equal Pay Day, the day that marks how long into
2019 a Latina would have to work in order to be paid the same wages
her white male counterpart was paid last year. That’s nearly 11
months longer, meaning that Latina workers had to work all of 2018 and
then this far—to November 20!—into 2019 to get paid the same as
white non-Hispanic men did in 2018. Put another way, a Latina would
have to be in the workforce for 57 years to earn what a non-Hispanic
white man would earn after 30 years in the workforce. Unfortunately,
Hispanic women are subject to a double pay gap
[[link removed]]—an
ethnic pay gap and a gender pay gap. And, this pay gap widened over
previous year when it “only” took until November 1 for Hispanic
women catch up to non-Hispanic men.

The date November 20 is based on the finding that Hispanic women
workers are paid 53 cents
[[link removed]] on the white
non-Hispanic male dollar, using the 2017 March Current Population
Survey for median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers.
We get similar results when we look at average _hourly_ wages for
all workers (not just full-time workers) using the monthly Current
Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group for 2018—which show
Hispanic women workers being paid 56 cents on the white male dollar.

This gap narrows—but not dramatically—when we control for
education, years of experience, and location by regression-adjusting
the differences between workers. Using this method, we find that, on
average, Latina workers are paid only 66 cents on the dollar relative
to white non-Hispanic men.

The wage gap between Latina workers and white non-Hispanic male
workers persists across the wage distribution, within occupations, and
among those with the same amount of education. FIGURE A shows
average wages for Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men at
different levels of educational attainment. At every level of
education, white non-Hispanic men are paid more than Hispanic women.
What’s also clear from the data is that further education does not
close their sizable wage gaps with white non-Hispanic men. As
Hispanic women increase their educational attainment, their pay gap
with white men generally _increases_. The largest dollar gap (more
than $18 an hour), occurs for workers with more than a college degree.
Even Hispanic women with an advanced degree earn less than white men
who only have a bachelor’s degree. That statistic bears repeating:
white non-Hispanic men with only a college degree are paid, on
average, $6.81 _more_ than Latinas with an advanced degree!

FIGURE A

Hispanic women make less than white non-Hispanic men at every
education levelAverage hourly wages, by gender, race, and education,
2018

Education Level
White non-Hispanic men
Hispanic women

Less than high school
$15.42
$11.56

High school
$21.88 
$14.83 

Some college
$24.39 
$16.55 

College
$40.58 
$25.29 

Advanced degree
$52.58 
$33.77 

SOURCE: EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation
Group microdata. For more information on the data sample, see EPI’s
State of Working America Data Library [[link removed]].

Much of these differences are grounded in the presence of occupational
segregation. Latina workers are far more likely to be found in certain
low-wage professions than white men are (and less common in high-wage
professions). But, even in professions with more Latina workers, they
still are paid less on average than their white male
colleagues. FIGURE B shows the average wages of Hispanic women and
white non-Hispanic men in the 10 most common occupations for Latinas.
In every one of them, white men, on average, are paid more than their
Latina counterparts.

FIGURE B

Average wages of Hispanic women and white non-Hispanic men by the 10
most populous occupations for Hispanic women

Occupation
White non-Hispanic men
Hispanic women

Maids and housekeeping cleaners
$14.79
$12.11

Cashiers
$12.69
$11.26

Retail salespersons
$22.05
$12.62

Secretaries and administrative assistants
$24.48
$18.73

Janitors and building cleaners
$15.82
$12.49

Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides
$15.17
$13.24

Waiters and waitresses
$10.22
$9.48

Child care workers
$15.27
$12.47

Cooks
$11.96
$11.17

Customer service representatives
$21.02
$15.19

SOURCE: EPI analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation
Group microdata. For more information on the data sample see EPI's
State of Working America Data Library [[link removed]].

Since Hispanic women continue to be over-represented in low-wage jobs,
policies that lift wages at the bottom will have a significant impact
on their wages. An increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025
would affect nearly one in three Latina workers.

While some (incorrectly) argue that Latinas are choosing lower-paid
professions
[[link removed]],
further education isn’t a panacea, as shown in FIGURE A. Regardless
of their level of educational attainment or their occupation, Latinas
are paid less than their white male counterparts. Additional EPI
research on the Hispanic-white wage gap
[[link removed]] includes
analysis of immigrant status and country of origin. Looking at only
full-time workers in a regression framework, Marie T. Mora and Alberto
Dávila find that Latina workers are paid 67 percent on the white
non-Hispanic male dollar (a 33 percent pay penalty). Accounting for
immigrant status, the pay penalty improves slightly to 30 percent and
is wider among first generation immigrants (39 percent) than second
(29 percent) or third or higher generation (31 percent).

No matter how you slice the data, it is clear that there is a lot of
work to be done to improve the standard of living for Latinas and
their families. More educational attainment and access to better
quality education would certainly help to improve the Latinas’
chances to move up the job ladder and get better paid jobs. However,
this is not the whole story, since even after controlling for
education, the wage gap remains very large. Offering and facilitating
access to occupations that are higher paid will also move Latinas up
the occupational ladder. Here too, however, we find that even within
the same occupations, Latinas fare worse. Lastly, it is important to
strengthen workplace protections
[[link removed]],
like equal pay for equal work provisions, so that those women who do
have the same education, the same occupation and are equally qualified
in the workplace are not paid less or driven away from moving up to
these higher paid positions.

_Elise Gould joined EPI in 2003. Her research areas include wages,
poverty, inequality, economic mobility and health care. She is a
co-author of The State of Working America, 12th Edition. _

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