Lawmakers Mark Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, Call for Urgent Action on Wage Gap

by Xara Aziz
iStock

A coalition of lawmakers led by Representatives Alma Adams (NC-12), Teresa Leger Fernández (FL-22), Lois Frankel (FL-22), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), and Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) introduced a congressional resolution designating July 10, 2025, as Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. The resolution highlights the stark wage disparities faced by Black women in the U.S. and calls for meaningful policy reforms to address the racial and gender wage gap.

Black Women’s Equal Pay Day represents how long a Black woman must work into the following year to earn what a white, non-Hispanic man made in the previous year. Currently, Black women working full-time year-round earn just 64 cents for every dollar earned by their white male counterparts. At this pace, pay equity will not be achieved until the year 2227.

“For too long, Black women have been forced to work twice as hard to get half as far,” said Rep. Adams. “We cannot afford to wait 200 years to be paid what we’re owed.”

Other lawmakers echoed the urgency. “Black women deserve equal pay for equal work — anything less is unacceptable,” said Rep. Leger Fernández, who noted that the Equal Pay Act was passed over 60 years ago and yet disparities remain entrenched.

The resolution has the backing of 70 House co-sponsors and numerous advocacy organizations. Leaders from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Equal Rights Advocates, the National Partnership for Women & Families, and the Black Women’s Roundtable all emphasized that structural racism, occupational segregation, and policy rollbacks have compounded economic hardship for Black women.

“This resolution acknowledges that Black women continue to be underpaid, undervalued, and overrepresented in low-paid jobs,” said Noreen Farrell of Equal Pay Today.

Advocates are calling for reforms including pay transparency, affordable childcare, paid family leave, and stronger enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

“Black women shouldn’t have to work more than half the year just to catch up to what white men earned in the prior year,” said Melanie Campbell of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. “Congress must act now — not just to recognize this inequity, but to end it.”

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