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In this moment, the future of our rights, our bodily autonomy, our freedom feels uncertain. What we do next will make a difference for decades to come.
Despite being original inhabitants and stewards of this land, Native women have never been compensated for the full value of their labor in the U.S. workforce, and this inequity persists today. In 2023, the most recent data available, Native women working full time, year-round were typically paid only 58 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. This gap in pay typically amounts to a loss of $2,505 every month or $30,055 every year. If this gap isn’t closed, a Native woman entering the workforce today stands to lose $1,202,200 over a 40-year career.
As bad as these losses are, the wage gap for full-time, year-round workers doesn’t fully reflect the true economic disparities faced by many Native women. The full-time, year-round wage gap leaves out those Native women who were unemployed or out of the labor force for part of the year, or who worked part time, even if they wanted full-time work. When we include part-time and part-year workers in the comparison, Native women were typically paid only 52 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men in 2023.
Wage gap figures for Native women vary widely by community. For example, among full-time, year-round workers, Blackfoot women are paid just 48 cents while Iñupiat women are paid 86 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. Whatever the wage gap for Native women, losing earnings because of the racist and sexist wage gap has robbed them of the economic security they need to thrive.