Latina Equal Pay Day is Every Day Until Equity is Achieved

This year, October 3 marks Latina Equal Pay Day, a day dedicated to highlighting the pay disparities that Latinas face in the United States. According to a 2024 National Women’s Law Center report, Latinas working full-time, year round get paid about 58 cents compared to every dollar paid to non-Latino white men. That means that it takes Latinas approximately two years to get paid what a white man makes in just one. Read that again: it will take Latinas almost two years to get paid what a white man makes in one. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve had to work twice as hard to earn half as much, it’s likely because you do.

The wage gap that Latinas face isn’t just staggering, it’s costly. Latina workers will stand to lose approximately 1.3 million dollars over the course of a 40 year career due to this wage gap. That is money being kept out of our pockets, hindering our earning power and further making class mobility difficult for a large portion of the U.S. population. It isn’t wage theft, it’s wage kept, money withheld from us as employers refuse to see our value and pay us our worth. These aren’t just statistics; They’re a stark reality that all Latinas face. I know because it happened to me.

Years ago, I applied for a position that I had hoped would help advance my career and help take me to the next level. With years of experience in all encompassing PR and marketing departments, a mid-level role at a promising organization seemed like the kind of opportunity most people only dream of. After an extensive interview and vetting process that played out over the course of a couple of months, I was officially offered the role. The hitch? The offer was approximately $3,000 less annually than I had made in my last job. I proposed a fair counter offer that would match my previous salary in a similarly titled role and was met with a response that was essentially, “This is it. Take it or leave it.” After an exhaustive interview process and being unemployed due to a budget cut at my last place of work, I knew that some money was better than no money. I took the job.

During my time there, I was the only person in the communications department. Which meant that while they considered me a junior level employee in title and pay, I was in fact, doing the work of an entire communications and marketing department as just one person. I assumed all of the responsibilities of a department head without the appropriate title or compensation. All the while, the prestige of the project was used as the excuse for lower pay. “It’ll look really good to have this on your resume.” “It’ll open a lot of doors,” these were things I heard time and time again and repeated to myself over and over as though it were a mantra and the ends justified the meager means I was being paid. The assumption being that the end result would be worth the financial sacrifice and the naive belief that we were all in the same boat. It wasn’t until a fateful lunch with fellow junior level staffers that I realized just how small that boat really was.

I came to learn that I, with years of experience in my field, was earning the same amount as a white woman colleague for whom this was her very first office job. In fact, the only junior level employee who earned less than me was a Black woman with a masters degree who was being criminally underpaid for her level of qualifications and experience and for whom the organization also seemed to have no interest in paying a living wage to. And those department heads, the majority of whom were non-Latino white men and women with one exception were easily earning three-four times as much a year as I was. Despite the fact that I WAS the entire department, it would have taken me YEARS to earn what someone holding my level of responsibility in another department earned despite my experience and qualifications.

The discovery was crushing and had I not gone to lunch and had those salary conversations which society used to and at times still views as taboo, I never would have realized the pay gap and level of exploitation that was happening. Every time a department head received a raise but my salary remained stagnant, I was cognizant of the wage gap that seemed to be growing wider and wider for me even as my responsibilities grew and I was expected to be available even during off hours. Funny how the budget always found money for raises for white employees and minorities were expected to scrape by and deal with it or find another place of work.

You see, the wage gap isn’t just a statistic. For most of us, it’s a reality of life that we are faced with and we will spend our entire careers trying to play catch up to an ever moving goal post. How can we reach pay equity when we’re not even at the same starting line?

We get loud and we fight.

Over the years, the culture around salary transparency has shifted. Certain states have enacted laws requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings. Employers (theoretically) can’t penalize employees for discussing salaries with one another though that won’t stop them from trying. The truth is that silence around the topic of salary and pay disparities benefits the employer, not the employee. Which is why we need to speak up and speak up often.

Latinas make up approximately 16 percent of the labor force in the United States according to the Department of Labor and yet we earn just a fraction of what our white counterparts do no matter how hard we work or for how long. And this issue isn’t relegated to just one particular industry, it’s across the board.

The pay gap exists in every single industry in this country. Even Hollywood isn’t immune as last year’s SAG and WGA strike saw the creation of Latinas Acting Up, bringing together Latinas from the film and tv industry to raise their voices to demand equal pay and a sustainable living. Something which everyone, in every field should be entitled to.

The fact of the matter is that for all of us Latinas, every day is Latina Equal Pay Day and will be until we close the wage gap. This issue isn’t just prevalent one day a year. It is the reality we live with 365 days a year and as minorities, we must continue to advocate for ourselves because if we don’t, who else will? We must be seen and our voices heard, especially as labor rights continue to erode in this country. We have to work twice as hard just to receive a fraction of the pay, but not for long.

Pay me what I’m worth isn’t just the slogan you’ll see posted everywhere for Latina Equal Pay Day, it’s our rallying cry. We know our worth. It’s time the rest of the world knows it too.