A preliminary analysis compiled by the New York City Council shows that Latino city workers make $8,700 less on average a year than their non-Latinx counterparts.
The analysis, released on Thursday, compared the salaries of 180,000 full-time city workers and found gender, race, and ethnic pay disparities. The data crunch found that female city workers make on average $4,500 a year less than their male counterparts and Black city employees make about $7,600 less annually compared to white workers.
In addition, the analysis discovered that city worker who identified as Asian tend to make $6,500 a year less than white employees.
The findings aligned with other studies that have show gender, racial and ethnic wage gaps to be serious problems. In New York, women who work full-time earn $6,735 a year less than men who work full-time, or 88 cents to the dollar, according to a study released from the National Partnership for Women and Families released last year.
This disparity is even worse for women of color. The same study found that Black and Latina women make $30,023 and $24,360 less a year than their male counterparts respectively.
“As one of only two Latinas in the City Council, I understand first-hand the challenges facing far too many New Yorkers fighting for their worth and their livelihoods, and I implore City Hall to take seriously the issue of pay parity and begin doing the hard work to address it immediately,” said Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who represents lower Manhattan.
“The fact that income disparities in the City’s workforce might impact New Yorkers by virtue of their gender, racial, and ethnic lines in the year 2020 is extremely unfortunates,” added Manhattan/Bronx Councilmember Diana Ayala.
City Council members were able to examine salary information with the help of Local Law 18 of 2019 which was crafted in response to the lawsuit the Communications Workers of America Local 1180 filed against the Bloomberg Administration over racial and gender pay discrimination in 2013.
“These preliminary findings are troubling and show exactly why Local Law 18 of 2019 was so important. For too long, the many contributions of women and people of color have been short-changed. It’s incumbent on all of us to make sure we are working to right those wrongs, and address the biases and discriminatory practices that contribute to pay and opportunity gaps,” said Council Speaker Corey Johnson.
