06/13/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/13/2025 06:07
June 13 marksLGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Day, a day to recognize the wage gap that continues to affect LGBTQIA+ communities.
According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research,
"On average, in 2021, LGBTQIA+ workers earned 90 cents per dollar compared to all full-time workersin the United States. Women in this community earned 87 cents per dollarcompared to the average wage for all workers across the labor market, while LGBTQIA+ men made 96 cents per dollar. Black, Native American, and Latina LGBTQIA+ women made even lessthan White LGBTQIA+ women, at 85, 75, and 72 cents per dollar, respectively."
And transgender women earn approximately 60 cents, with transgender men and non-binary individuals earning about 70 cents for every dollar earned by the average worker.
This all adds up to the fact that members of the LGBTQIA+ population are more likely to live in poverty-in 2022, more than one in three households earned less than $30,000 per year.
Factors that contribute to the wage gap include:
NOW members can use today's observance as an opportunity to double down on support for nondiscrimination protections, comprehensive anti-discrimination laws, pay transparency, more inclusive workplace cultures, bias-free recruitment and promotion practices, equitable benefits for LGBTQIA+ employees and better data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment contexts to help identify disparities and inform targeted interventions.
Here are resources from National Women's Law Centerabout equal pay and wage gap laws, and how to measure the wage gap using current data. And here is a comprehensive study by Human Rights Campaignon the wage gap among LGBTAIA+ workers in the U.S. from four years ago that called on the Biden Administration to regain lost ground and make progress for working women. Much of what was called for in this report was launched-and today it's all under threat.
NOW members have work to do to not only stop these protections from being rolled back, but to strengthen laws and policies that value the contributions of LGBTQIA+ individuals and closes the wage gap that is behind more economic insecurity, mental health strain and limited retirement options.
On today's LGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Day, we recommit ourselves to supporting groups and organizations working on these issues, educating ourselves and others, challenging bias and discrimination and advocating for inclusive policies that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.