Members Rally to Close the Gender Wage Gap

New Yorkers are not letting up on their mission to close the gender wage gap. On the steps of New York City Hall, SAG-AFTRA EVP and New York Local President Rebecca Damon and a contingent of local members joined New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General Leticia “Tish” James and a plethora of local labor and elected leaders at the 13th annual Equal Pay Day rally. Organized by PowHer New York, the statewide network committed to securing economic equality for all New York women, the April 2 date reflects how many additional days the average American woman must work to earn what the average American male earned the year before.

“Because we’re New Yorkers, we will not stop until we are at 100 percent pay equity, and we will not have to come out here on an April day anymore,” exclaimed Hochul, who is also co-chair of the New York State Equal Pay Equity Study. 

James pointed out that half of the major corporations in this country are guilty of paying women less than their male counterparts. “Whether its 83, 81, 65, 62 or 56 cents, it’s not an equal dollar to a white man. We are far from done and we will keep showing up until all women get #EqualPay,” she later posted on social media.

Collectively, women who work full time in New York are paid 88 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn. However, the discrepancy is more egregious for particular female racial and ethnic groups. Within the same calendar year, black women and Latinas earn 61 and 53 percent, respectively, of white, non-Hispanic male salaries. 

Other speakers cited statistics and enumerated ways gender-based wage discrimination affected their communities’ access to family caregiving, transportation, education and health care. They called on New York state to pass legislation banning employers from soliciting salary history to set pay rates. At the rally’s conclusion, Damon led the crowd in a spirited chant demanding equal pay.