This year’s national Lean In initiative is based on the successful campaign spearheaded last year by Lean In’s Washington D.C. chapter, which took place on April 12th and in which the capital’s businesses offered discounts of 21% to women and women’s advocates. Because the pay gap is (slowly) shrinking, Equal Pay Day is being commemorated earlier this year than in 2016, and the amount of the discount has decreased by one percentage point.
While the average wage gap for U.S. women is currently at 20%, the size of the gap varies by race and ethnicity; it is far larger for women of color, according to a new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Black women are paid 37% less than their while male counterparts—a gap that increases to 46% for Hispanic women. This means that an Equal Pay Day for black women only would fall on July 31st, while Hispanic women would have to work until November 2nd of this year to earn as much as white men did in 2016.
