Equal Pay for Women with Disabilities
We know three facts to be true:
- Women make 82 cents for each dollar a man makes professionally.
- Women with disabilities make HALF as much money of what women without disabilities make.
- We women, but more specifically women with disabilities… are tired.
Women are paid less and women in various marginalized communities, even more so. I want to focus on women with disabilities, because something I noticed yesterday is that working women with disabilities are not a part of the conversation as much as they should be.
In 2017, the median pay for women with disabilities was 72 percent that of men with disabilities. Even more shocking is the statistic that women with a disability made 48 percent as much as men without a disability. (AAWU The Simple Truth).
Let’s be real, when you’re getting a job and an employer is looking at two people with the same credentials with the only differentiating factor being a disability, the employer is likely to hire the person without a disability. The reason? There is a preconceived notion that hiring someone without a disability will be less costly and less of a burden than a team member with a disability. THIS IS NOT TRUE! Not seeing the value that women with disabilities bring to the table perpetuates this wage gap and negatively impacts the overall economy.
Something I know many people with disabilities struggle with is this looming feeling of desperation. “Oh, you’re providing me with accommodations… sure, I’ll take the pay you can give me.” NO! Accommodations and pay should NOT be contingent on one another. Just because you have one does not mean you cannot discuss the other independently. There are countless systemic barriers that women are met with when it comes to equal pay, and we cannot forget that those barriers are amplified for marginalized groups.
For more information read: https://www.aauw.org/app/uploads/2020/02/AAUW-2018-SimpleTruth-nsa.pdf
