WEBVTT - Equal F***ing Pay for Equal F***ing Work 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.760 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wokay f Daily with 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.560 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live from the Podstream 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.160 studios here in Times Square. Folks, I don't know if 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.799 you were aware, but this week was Equal Pay for 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.000 Black Women Day and that was on August third. And 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.520 I want to say this. This is according to CNBC, 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.080 and I find this so completely troubling. First that we 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.919 have to have an equal pay day in general for 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.879 all women, then we have to have a Black women's 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.240 equal pay day because as you stratifize, you go down 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:53.200 the list of ethnicities by gender, you just lose money. Right, 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:58.720 So here's what CNBC News says this week, Tuesday, August third, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:04.040 Black Women's Equal Pay Day marked the additional listen to this, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.280 two hundred and fourteen days that black women must work 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.319 to catch up with white non Hispanic men what they 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.720 earned last year. In essence, this article says black women 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.720 have to work for five hundred and seventy nine days 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.840 to make what white men do in three hundred and 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.160 sixty five. The article goes on to say this, and 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.320 I want you to pay attention to these numbers because again, 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:35.000 we have a Congress, right now that is controlled supposedly 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.640 by Democrats. We have a one vote margin with the 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.280 Vice President in the Senate. And here's the thing. We 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.600 have more women in Congress now than we have at 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.200 any other point in history, and yet we can't manage 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.360 to get a fucking equal Pay Act on the books. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.480 And so how does it work, just in general for 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.480 the economy. If everyone who is working is not making 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.680 what they should be making, then you're not investing in 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.320 the economy and everyone loses. So I want you to 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:11.840 listen to this. On average, black women are currently paid 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:16.200 only sixty three cents for every dollar paid to a 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:20.400 non Hispanic white man. For full time working black women, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.480 this amounts to a median wage gap listen of two thousand, 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.280 two thousand and nine dollars a month, twenty four thousand, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.080 one hundred and ten dollars a year, and nine hundred 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.959 and sixty four thousand, four hundred dollars over a forty 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.360 year career. So you're looking at a potential loss over 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.840 forty years of working before you supposedly are able to 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.240 retire of close to a million fucking dollars in lost 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.120 wages because of pay and equity. And this is according 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.560 to the National Women's Law Center, and they say this. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.120 I've looked at this in a lot of different ways, 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.200 says Jasmine Tucker, who is the director of research. I've 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.280 cut it by education, I've cut it by age, I've 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.560 cut it by job. It doesn't go away. It gets 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.760 a little bigger, it gets a little smaller, but the 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.920 wage gap is always there. There's a wage gap in 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:22.800 ninety four percent of occupations. Think about this because when 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.280 you think about the education level, the average, the median 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:32.200 education level of Black women, majority of black women are 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:39.840 college educated, many have post degrees, right graduate degrees. So 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:45.800 you're talking about a highly educated part of the black community. 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.640 Highly educated meaning on top of which you have an 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:54.920 enormous amount of student loan debt. So not only are 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.760 you trying to work twice as hard to get half 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.720 as much, but you're also incurring an insane amount of 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.960 debt in order to do that and still having to 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.760 work two hundred and fourteen days more than your white 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.760 male counterpart. How the fuck do we see these numbers? 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.040 Know that it's true, Know that it doesn't matter if 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.279 you are working as a doctor, or if you're working 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:23.240 as a teacher, or if you're working as a nurse. 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.640 It does not matter. The pay gap is apparent in 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.040 ninety four percent of occupations, and we have the ability 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.599 to do that to change it. In other countries. Do 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.120 you know that it is illegal to pay people a 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.600 different wage for the same amount of work. Why is 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.080 that such a pipe dream to think about here in America? 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.839 That if I am working side by side in the 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.080 same office, in the same fucking position as a white man, 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.440 that he is making over a dollar more than I am. 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.760 How is that? Okay? You know, the justification back in 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.640 the day was this, And we are so fucking far 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.560 removed from the little woman stays at home, heteronormative, patriarchal 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.240 model of what our economy and work looks like. We 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.920 are so far removed from the nineteen fifties in that aspect, right, 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:23.400 But we still set up this idea that somehow white 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:28.600 men deserve to get paid more money for doing less. 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.880 So here's the other thing that the article says. Black 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.400 women who work in areas that are critical to the 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:40.720 COVID nineteen recovery, such as doctors, nurses, teachers, childcare workers, 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.800 wait staff, and cashiers, for example, make eleven to twenty 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.119 seven percent less than white men, according to the data 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:55.280 from the Economic Policy Institute, in higher paid professions, including 0:05:55.320 --> 0:06:01.400 among doctors. This broke my heart. White male physicians and 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:06.520 surgeons make sixty three dollars and forty one cents an 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:14.400 hour on average. Black women in these positions make less 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.920 than forty six dollars and fifty nine cents an hour. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.360 This is according to the Economic Policy Institute. The pay 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:27.080 gap can potentially result in millions of dollars lost in 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:33.240 wages in black female physicians lifetime. So imagine again, you're 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:38.760 going to school for seven, eight, however many years in 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.960 order to get that good paying job. You get in. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.640 You think that you are doing it, you are doing 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.960 the most, and you come to find out that you 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:54.440 are making twenty to thirty dollars less than your colleague 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:59.599 who studied right beside you, going through the same program, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.599 getting the same degree. This is not about fairness, because 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:09.240 fairness comes from a place of morality and values. Right. 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.520 This is about equity, and I believe that we should 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:17.840 be in a position to be able to sue employers. Right. 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.400 We got part way there with the Lily Ledbetter Act 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.240 that was signed during the Obama years, but we did 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.960 not get all the way there, and it's a conversation, honestly, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.800 that does not come up enough. Over fifty percent of 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:37.640 the fucking population is women, over fifty percent. So you're 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.840 talking about folks that if you are a single parent 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:43.920 and you are a woman, that you are barely able 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.320 to make ends meet, you should not be in a 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:52.200 household where your husband, if you are straight again, your 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.120 husband is making more money than you and you're in 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.840 the same position. And this goes thinking about right, queer people, 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:06.280 Black queer women who are coupled are more likely to 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.640 be living at the poverty line than any other group. 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.080 That is insane to me, but that number is always 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:15.880 stuck out in my head from when I was doing 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.320 the research as a senior advisor at the Center for 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.480 American Progress many years ago, because when you're looking at 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.520 the way discriminatory policies work is that there is a 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.640 huge economic component here because in order for white men 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.520 to have everything that they have, the path needs to 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.720 be cleared for them, which means that whatever clutter, debris 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.400 and obstacles are moved out of their way are placed 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.480 in other people's way. And we just shrug this off 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.320 in America, and we say, continue to lie to people 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.480 and tell them, get an education, pull yourself up by 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.280 your bootstraps, do the most. And you have a group 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.079 of people, black women, who do all of those fucking things, 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.480 check every single goddamn box, and still come up in 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.360 their lifetime a million dollars less. So when we were 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:10.800 referred to and said to be the workhorse of this country, 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.880 this is what the fuck I'm talking about, because from 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:18.080 slavery until now, black women have never gotten their just 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.840 due ever. Right, we don't even get acknowledged for the 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.280 creative content that is put in being put out. So 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.760 if you have kids right now who are telling you 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.560 about boycotts that were happening on TikTok and other things, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.120 it's because black creators are like, fuck, y'all. You come 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.160 in here, you steal our moves, you steal our intelligence, 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.479 you steal our creativity, you dress it up in whiteface, 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:43.160 and then you push it out there, and all of 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.320 a sudden, you're getting all of these ten twenty thirty 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:53.360 thousand millions of endorsements, and meanwhile, the black creatives get nothing. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:10:00.200 It happens in every single space, in every single industry, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.199 and it is sickening, and it should be illegal. You 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:09.480 should get the same full dollar for work that your 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.160 male counterparts get. So the article goes on to state 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:20.719 this and again just really incredibly troubling to me. So 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.640 it goes on to state this very clear fact, student 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:29.120 loan debt, as I mentioned, caregiving duties, particularly for single 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.240 black women, are among the factors that can exacerbate the 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.960 overall gender and racial wealth gap. Yet some companies are 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.760 making strides, they say, to provide benefits that could help 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.360 narrow the divide by providing student loan repayment assistance and 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.760 subsidized childcare. So again, when I hear the likes of 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:59.520 Nancy Pelosi utter things like canceling student loan debt isn't 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.080 a good eye idea. This is who she's saying, it's 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.839 not a good idea too. There are schools right now, 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.320 some that we have talked about historically black colleges, that 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:17.599 are canceling student loan debt because they want their graduates 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.480 to be able to dream, to achieve. What would you do, 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.480 where would you go work, what would you invent, what 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.080 would you innovate on? What business would you create if 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.959 you weren't saddled with six figures of student loan debt. 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.240 It stops innovation, it stops dreaming, and it forces us 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.040 to continue to be cogs in a machine that just 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.800 grind us out. So it is a different form, dare 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:50.720 I say, of indentured servitude that happens when you become 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.679 a college graduate. And so when Democrats, on one hand 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.800 want a campaign and tell young people, oh, we have 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.840 your back, or anyone for that matter that wants to 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.000 go back get certificates and degree so that they can 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.160 be more competitive, you're trying to be more competitive so 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.800 that you can make more money. And we're telling black 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.520 women that essentially you're a motherfucking hamster on a wheel 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.160 right now, because you can keep running, and you can 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.600 keep running, but you ain't ever really going to get anywhere. 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.079 And that's a horrible place to be in, a horrible 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.280 one to be in, particularly when we have the ability 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.280 to stop it, when we have the ability to create 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.240 policies that make it a federal offense for you to 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.800 pay people a different amount of money for the same 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:45.040 goddamn jobs. I'm not talking about bonuses, folks, I'm talking 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.360 about the fact that you're sitting as a cashier right, 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.000 and Johnny next to you is making twenty dollars an 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.640 hour and you're making twelve. But you guys are scanning 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.440 the same fucking groceries. That's what is happening. That's what's 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.199 been happening, and we have justified it by saying, oh, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.160 you know, the good old boys club men need to 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.000 make more because they got to take care of the 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.240 little woman at home. That is not the society that 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:13.800 we live in, and it has not been for quite 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.680 some time. But our policies have not caught up to 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.239 where we are currently, and that to me is incredibly frustrating. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.520 So they say that there are some fixes that employees 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.720 can make, but again I'm looking in this article where 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.839 there isn't any for the fixes that Congress can make. Right, So, 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.640 once again we are passing the buck to private employers 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.920 to do the right thing. They're not going to do 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.440 the right thing without fucking incentives. We know that no 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.880 one does. So here is what they offer. Employers can 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.120 make tax free contributions of up to five thousand, two 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.600 hundred and fifty dollars a year to their employees student 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.559 debt through twenty twenty five. That can help many workers, 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.320 including black women who are among those hardest hit with 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:06.160 student loan debt. This is another interesting point. While mothers 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.679 in general who work full time earn seventy five cents 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:16.320 per every dollar paid to fathers, black working moms are 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:21.840 paid just fifty two cents on the dollar. However, a 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:27.120 recent NWLC report found that in high if high quality, 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:33.240 affordable childcare were universally available. And again, this is the 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:37.239 type of infrastructure that we're talking about in the America 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.800 Cares Plan. We are talking about ways in which we 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:49.560 learned through COVID nineteen how unaffordable childcare is for most 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.440 American households. And so if we were like we are 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.560 doing right now with the child with the earned child 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.320 tax and all of these credits that folks are able 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.640 to get per child, but understand that this is running 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:09.440 out right, all of these offers, let's say, from the 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.480 federal government, have expiration dates, and we see how they 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.960 function with expiration dates. Given what happened with the moratorium 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.480 on evictions. People were evicted at five o'clock in the 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.600 evening that day because guess what, the extension didn't take 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:31.600 place until five thirty. So we know that everything that 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.800 is afforded two families two individuals has an expiration date, 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.560 of course, if you're not a shareholder or a CEO. 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.280 But there are ways that the federal government can provide 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:49.720 a basic fucking income so people are able to close 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:54.600 this gap. It should not just be left to private 0:15:54.680 --> 0:16:01.720 industry to do the right thing. That is it for 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.640 Today's Woke, A f daily podcast. To hear more from me, 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:10.440 including five full hour long shows every single week, exclusive 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.040 guest interviews, and more. Support me on Patreon at patreon 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.600 dot com. Slash Woke f power to the people and 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.160 to all the people power, get woke and stay woke 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:21.600 as fuck.