We have all heard the oft-cited statistic that the average woman earns only 78¢ to the average man’s dollar. This year, President Obama proclaimed April 14, 2015 as National Equal Pay Day. Within his proclamation, Obama noted that this newly created National Equal Pay Day “mark[s] how far into the new year women would have to work just to earn the same as men did in the previous year…” Though the importance of recognizing that women are paid less than men cannot be understated, the 78¢ statistic only tells part of the story. This 78¢ statistic, which is customarily applied to all women but really only represents white women, is peddled for all women while black make significantly less.

On average, black women earn only 64¢ to the white man’s dollar. This is a mere 5-percentage-point-gain over the general pay disparity between men and women when President Kennedy passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, an act that was designed to abolish wage disparities based on gender. For all women, the wage gap has shrunk. However, white women have reaped the benefits of the Equal Pay Act more than women of color. In fact, black women earn only 82¢ to a white woman’s dollar!

Yearly, black women lose $19,399 per year to the wage gap, and over a 40-year career, black women lose $775,000. Within these pay disparities lies the fact that black women are especially economically disadvantaged. The National Women’s Law Center reports that though black women are more likely than their white counterparts to be the heads of households, black women are more likely than their white counterparts to live in poverty. According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, black women are more likely than their white counterparts to report having problems paying their rent or mortgage, twice as likely to report that they have gone hungry because they could not afford food, and more likely to report having trouble getting or paying for medical care for their self or their family. These disparities exist and they’re outrageous, but we don’t see as much publicity directed towards the wage inequality black women face.

July 28 is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. This date marks the almost eight extra months black women must work in order to earn as much as a white man earned by the end of 2014. Atlanta Women for Equality will be launching a social media campaign to bring awareness to this wage gap in the hopes of one day eradicating it completely. At 2:07 PM — the time during a 9-to-5 workday a black woman would stop working to account for the wage gap if she were being paid the same as a white man — post a selfie of yourself symbolically clocking out on any social media platform. Tag it as #BlackWomenEqualPay or #ClockOut4EqualPay. You can print out a time card to use in your selfie and find more information about the wage gap here. The wage gap black women face is ridiculously unfair. The movement to eradicate it starts now.

Even when women do get equal pay, black women will most likely still get paid less. #HowItFeelsToBeABlackGirl

— . (@Kunionn) June 18, 2015

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Agbo Ikor

Writing since July 2015 · 1 story contributed