AANHPI Equal Pay Day

he average Asian American / Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander woman is paid $0.75* for every $1.00 paid white, non-Hispanic men, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 40-year career. Conversely, AANHPI women working full-time make $.95 for every $1 paid to a white, non-Hispanic man.

About AANHPI Equal Pay Day

Equal Pay Day was developed by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages. According to Equal Pay Today, the average Asian American / Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander woman is paid $0.75* for every $1.00 paid white, non-Hispanic men, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 40-year career. Conversely, AANHPI women working full-time make $.95 for every $1 paid to a white, non-Hispanic man. But, that’s only part of the story. For certain communities within this classification, the wage gap is far greater. Vietnamese women earn $0.67, Hmong women earn $0.61, and Burmese women earn only $0.52, making them some of the lowest paid people in the nation. 

Articles

The ‘Double Pay Penalty’ that Many Asian-American and Pacific Islander Women Experience

Asian American women have higher levels of education than white men, and when comparing wages of workers with the same level of education, the disparities are much larger.

 

New Census Data Reveals No Progress Has Been Made on Closing the Overall Gender Pay Gap

When broken down racially, White women’s pay gap remained unchanged at $0.79 for every dollar earned by White men, while Asian women’s pay gap widened from $0.90 to $0.87.

 

Why Asian American Women Have Had Highest Jobless Rates During Last 6 Months of COVID

Forty-four percent of unemployed Asian American women have been jobless long-term, a trend experts say is due to the sectors they work in, family and cultural dynamics.

 

Jobless for Longer: Pandemic Hits Asian Americans Hard

The 5.9% unemployment rate among the roughly 10 million-strong Asian workforce in December was below the national rate. But in the final three months of 2020, almost half of jobless Asians had been out of work for at least 27 weeks.

 

Factsheets

On May 3, 2022, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPII) women’s earnings finally catch up to what white, non-Hispanic men made in 2021 for doing the same work. On average, AANHPI women earn only 75 cents for every dollar that white, non-Hispanic men make. This year the National Asian Pacific American Womens Forum are including part-time, seasonal, migrant, and gig workers in the data. Previous years only included full-time workers, which focused the discussion on white women and white-collar work and left out the country’s lowest paid women.

Due to the wage gap, AAPI women typically lose $400,000 over a 40-year career. In order to make up for lost wages, they have to work longer
hours, multiple jobs, and often, past retirement age.

Watch last year’s video by our partners at Equal Rights Advocates below.

 

Reports

According to the National Women’s Law Center, among AAPI women, 11 percent say they quit or lost a job during the pandemic. They are also
the group of women least likely to say they reduced hours or changed jobs during the pandemic. Of those who left, 47 percent say they since started a new job. This relatively low level of volatility during the pandemic is partially due to relatively higher household incomes, while relatively more AAPI women report being married or living with a partner. 

Reports

Resilient but Not Recovered: REPORT

The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles: REPORT

California Budget and Policy Center: Women’s Well Being Index

The Economic Status of Asian American and Pacific Islander Women – Center for American Progress: REPORT

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Unemployment rate for AAPI women in March 2022

Cents Earned for Every $1 Earned by White, Non-Hispanic Male Counterparts

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Of Employed AAPI Women are Essential Workers

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Of Asian Workers are Eligible for the FMLA

 

Social Media Toolkit

The California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls is excited to share the Equal Pay Today social media toolkit for AANHPI Equal Pay Day. This toolkit provides content from coalition partners for to help increase awareness about the challenges facing women, and particularly AANHPI women, in the workplace.