Equal Pay Day is arriving even later this year (March 25, 2025) —and for Black women, the delay is especially telling.
Last year the milestone was reached on March 12. While the symbolic date already marks how far into the new year women must work to earn what white men made in the previous year, Black women face an even steeper climb. The shift highlights the persistent and growing pay gap rooted not just in gender, but in race.
According to the latest data, Black women in the U.S. earn just 66 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men, a gap that has widened in several industries despite gains in education and entrepreneurship. The new, later Equal Pay Day marks a troubling reminder of how systemic barriers—ranging from occupational segregation to discrimination in hiring and promotion—continue to suppress the earning power of Black women. Advocates are renewing calls for federal action, transparency in pay, and investment in Black women’s economic mobility.
Blake Walker Richardson, Esq. an attorney with entertainment blockchain company Gala Games. Being one of the youngest Black female attorneys in tech, she knows how challenging it is to reach pay parity as a double minority, especially now.
“Right now in my current position, I’m being paid equally to my male counterpart,” Richardson tells ESSENCE. “We have the same amount of responsibility, and are on the same payscale, but that hasn’t always been my story. I have already experienced what it feels like to be working 5, 10 times harder than my male counterparts and not being paid even close to what they’re getting.”
Richardson represents millions of Black women who work fervently to scale the corporate ladder in hopes of being compensated the same salaries that their non-minority counterparts. She acknowledges that, because of the ever-widening equity gap, she can’t risk losing her footing.
“Now that I’m in the position where I am, I still have this stigma of I have to work, I have to work, I can’t take a break,” Richardson explains, sharing she just had a baby five weeks ago. She didn’t take one day off from work since delivering her child. “I’m pushing myself to find the balance of 50 %, 50 % with motherhood, family, and job.”
This drive is well-founded, since jobs reports show well-paying positions are getting harder to find, particularly for Black women, coupled with a successful anti-DEI push led by the conservative right.
“The gender pay gap is wider for women of color, which we measure by comparing earnings to white men and between women and men of the same race,” says Amy Stewart, Principal, Research & Insights at Payscale. She adds: “Between 2024 and 2025 we have seen the uncontrolled pay gap widen for Asian women, Black women, Hispanic women, and white women.”
Richardson provided more context to the data, pointing out that scales are and have long been uneven for women at work.
“There are a couple of reasons for the lag this year with Equal Pay Day being uneven wage recovery across industries,” Richardson says. “There’s been male-dominated sectors, like tech, which is the industry I’m in.” She adds: “I definitely think inflation has moderated slightly wage growth for women, particularly in lower and mid-wage jobs. It hasn’t kept pace with rising living costs either. This has widened the effective pay gap. Also, just in general, I think that this was very telling—while we’ve seen some progress, to me, this was evidence that progress has stalled, and also in some areas have completely reversed, where there’s industries where women make up most of the workforce.”
While Richardson also acknowledged that despite DEI now being a political bargaining chip, it’s still important for corporations to hire equitably to help slow the gap’s growth.
“If you are in the position to hire people, make sure that you are representing across the board—make sure there is representation on your team—that if you are using any type of third party contractors, there’s representation there as well,” Richardson says. “So, it’s an urgent call to say, do something about it before Equal Pay Day gets pushed back even further.”
