About wage equity now
In 2019-2020, under the leadership of the Massachusetts Women’s Forum’s (MWF) then President Jackie Jenkins-Scott, prominent women leaders in government, business and nonprofits came together to use their power and influence to take on a project that would have a large impact on an issue still facing many women in the workforce: the gender and racial wage gaps.
Building on the UK example where employers publicly report their gender wage gaps annually, the team of MWF members, called Wage Equity Now (WEN), asked over one hundred employers to voluntarily report their wage gaps. Only three agreed to do so.
In 2021, in a moment when racial and gender equity at work is not only the right thing to do but also, essential to a fully vibrant Massachusetts economy, WEN introduced legislation to make employers’ wage and power gaps transparent—to establish accountability for and measure progress in eliminating these gaps.
WEN is an initiative of the Massachusetts Women’s Forum made possible with funding from the Boston Foundation and the Eos Foundation. Special recognition is owed to Judy Habib, current President of the MWF and her firm KHJ Brand Activation which developed the name and logo.
wage equity now is focused on closing the raw wage and power gaps
These gaps illustrate the pay imbalances between men, women, and people of color, specifically Black and Brown employees. They also show that women and people of color do not hold the highest paying jobs and are not promoted to leadership positions at the same rate as white men.
To measure the gaps, our goal is for employers to report wage data for these groups of employees:
All Female Employees
All White Employees
White Male Employees
versus
All Female Employees
All Employees of Color
Black Male & Female Employees
Latinx Male & Female Employees
White Female Employees
How will this look?
Here’s an example of the data each company will publish:
Raw wage gap = 30%
Raw wage gap = 35.7%
Raw wage gap = 30.4%
Raw wage gap = 35%
Raw wage gap = 40%
Raw wage gap = 44.6%
Raw wage gap = 50.7%
The Boston Women’s Workforce Council has anonymously collected the data used above from over 200 employers in the Greater Boston area. These baseline data show the average raw wage gaps by gender and race in Massachusetts.