Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson addressing the Caribbean-American Heritage Month Celebration at Andrew Freeman Home, 1125 Grand Concourse, Bronx, on Wednesday, June 18, 2025.
Picture by Nelson A. King
In observing Black Girls’s Equal Pay Day on Thursday, July 10, Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson and Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams lamented what they thought to be “structural inequities” that Black ladies proceed to face within the US.
“Black Girls’s Equal Pay Day is a sobering reminder of the Black ladies nonetheless earn 66 cents for each greenback paid to white males, forcing them to work practically eight additional months to be compensated the identical quantity as their white male counterpart,” mentioned Gibson, whose father hailed from Trinidad and Tobago.
“This pay hole is a systemic injustice that impacts numerous households and communities within the Bronx, New York Metropolis, New York State, and past,” she added.
“As the primary Black Girl to function Bronx Borough President, I’m proud to hitch the numerous voices of advocates who’re on the frontlines persevering with the battle for accountability, transparency, and financial insurance policies that guarantee Black Girls are paid what they’ve rightfully earned,” Gibson continued.
Speaker Adams mentioned: “On Black Girls’s Equal Pay Day, we’re reminded of the persisting racial and gender pay disparities that proceed to hamper our workforce and financial system.
“For Black ladies, who sit on the intersection of those disparities, the inequities are notably hanging, with us making solely 66 cents for each greenback earned by a white man,” she mentioned.
“Particularly at a time when our rights and alternatives as ladies of shade are underneath assault by the Trump administration, New York should lead and confront this persevering with injustice,” Adams urged. “Our most numerous and historic women-majority Metropolis Council will proceed working to handle pay disparities within the metropolis, progressing a extra equitable financial system that pays all employees what they deserve.”
The Nationwide Group for Girls (NOW) famous that Black Girls’s Equal Pay Day is the date on the calendar that “symbolizes the extra time Black ladies in the USA should work into the present 12 months to earn what white, non-Hispanic males earned within the earlier 12 months.”
NOW pressured that Black ladies earn, on common, about 66 cents for each greenback earned by non-Hispanic white males on this nation in the identical position.
Pointing to Equal Pay At the moment, NOW mentioned, over a 40-year profession, this wage hole can accumulate to just about $1 million in misplaced earnings.
It mentioned occupational segregation, lack of pay transparency, unpaid care-giving tasks, and discrimination in hiring and promotions “perpetuate the wage hole.”
NOW mentioned a truth sheet from Institute for Girls’s Coverage Analysis (IWPR) exhibits how Black ladies gained’t attain pay fairness till the 12 months 2227.
“Systemic racism and sexism perpetuate pay inequity for Black ladies, and intersectional coverage options are wanted reminiscent of anti-discrimination enforcement, the precise to unionize (and safety for unionized employees), and student-debt cancellation,” NOW mentioned.
“The coverage suggestions from IWPR are wise, pressing, and lengthy overdue,” it added.
NOW mentioned it continues to battle for coverage options such because the Paycheck Equity Act, “which is able to assist be sure that employees are paid the identical quantity for a similar work.
“And we have to improve the minimal wage, assure parental depart and childcare subsidies to make sure that Black ladies can deal with their youngsters and never be prematurely pressured again to work,” it added.
“At the moment, on Black Girls’s Equal Pay Day, we rededicate ourselves to attaining pay fairness and dismantling a racist system that holds us again, and places us in danger,” NOW continued.
