In unsurprising news, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation issued a study and shared its findings with the public regarding how much money LGBTQ women make compared to all men, and what they found is women made less. In fact, on average, LGBTQ women make 79 cents for every dollar earned by a man.
When looking at disparities between different groupings of LGBTQ women, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found even more troubling data. When looking at the intersections of race and sexuality, women of color and bisexual women earned less.
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Shoshana Goldberg, director of public education and research at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, pointed out that the gender pay gap hasn’t been helped by increased visibility.
“As the number of openly LGBTQ+ people in our country grows, the fight for equal pay has not yet been won.” Goldberg continued, “Earning less is a dangerous setback that impacts every facet of our lives and must be addressed to promote true equity in not only our finances but in society at large.”
The situation is dire because by looking at the pay differences between men and LGBTQ women, women have to work up to 55 days extra in a year to make up the loss by not being paid an equitable wage.
Compared to data gathered last year, there is room to believe that the wage gap is increasing. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation found them that women made an average of 87 cents per dollar earned by a man. That’s an eight-cent difference.
But when focusing on the racial categories of LGBTQ women, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found that non-white LGBTQ women on average earn less.
At the lower end of the pay scale, LGBTQ Latina women earn only 65 cents on the dollar compared to men and make 14 cents less than LGBTQ white women. This adds additional extra days that Latina women would have to work to make up the pay gap between them and other LGBTQ women.
Compared to LGBTQ Latina women, bisexual women actually earn less. And when factoring in race, women of color who are also bisexual earn the least amount of money in the LGBTQ community.
White bisexual women earn 75 cents per dollar earned by a man; however, Black bisexual women earned just 63 cents, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander bisexual women made just 60 cents.
Looking at Latina bisexual women, their wages are the lowest among bisexual women. They only earn, on average, 50 cents on the dollar.
