By focusing on women-owned businesses, specifically Black women-owned businesses, economic gains will be incredibly meaningful.
Shopping your values will change culture and lives. The lack of gender parity in the United States is outrageous for a supposedly developed country. Economic stability is an area that women continue to lag behind The lack of gender parity is most acute when it comes to economics. For all women, The World Economic Report on the Gender Gap estimates that it will take over 257 years for women to reach parity. The picture is even bleaker for women of color. Digging deeper, “equal wages” is often highlighted as an indicator of women’s economic health, but does not reflect the depth of the gender imbalance women face and especially Black women and women of color.
The following table shows the depth of this imbalance in the US:
| For every $1.00 a man makes in the US | |
| All Women | $0.82 |
| Black Women | $0.62 |
| Latinx Women | $0.54 |
Women’s wages are lagging, with no sign of recovering.
What Does the Wage Gap Mean for America’s Women?
On average, women employed full time in the United States lose a combined total of more than $916 billion every year due to the wage gap. These lost wages mean women and their families have less money to support themselves, to save and invest for the future, and to spend on goods and services. Women, their families, businesses, and the economy suffer as a result. *
Business ownership, revenue, investment, and employment impacts:
38% of businesses in the United States are women-owned. They employ nearly 9 million people and generate more than $1.6 trillion in revenue annually. But that is only part of the story. Women of color own 50% of those businesses, yet they only generated 27% of the total revenue. The State of Women-Owned Businesses Report tells us that four billion new jobs and $981 billion in revenue would be added to the economy if the average revenue of minority women-owned firms matched that of white women-owned businesses. Think about that.
Join us at TheWMarketplace.com to shop your values and support the economic engine for women. Let’s close the gender gap together.
*Click here.
