Black Women’s Equal Pay Day (Only 3% of Black Professionals Want to Return To The Office) & Strategies To Navigate Life Transitions

Holistic Wealth With Keisha Blair

Today on the Holistic Wealth Podcast, we have a solo episode, so I'm so excited. There's a huge topic that's been in the media this week. This week we celebrated Black Women's Equal Pay Day. And so I just want to talk about some issues related to that, especially because there is a new statistic out from Future Forum that states that only 3% of black professionals surveyed want to go back to the office full- time.

Now that statistic is just mind blowing, because what that means is that 97% of Black professionals surveyed from Future Forum don't want to go back to the office full time. It's unbelievable. And I also want to share some stats from Lean in.org that was shared on Black Women's Equal Pay Day. And these statistics are equally startling.

According to Lean In.org, Black women had to work seven extra months into 2021 to get paid what white men were paid in 2020 alone. In addition, more than four in five Black women are the major breadwinners for their families, which means their partners and children are dependent on their income. So black women can't afford to pass up an opportunity even if it isn't fair. In other words, they have to just stick with what they can get because they are the breadwinners for their families, the breadwinners for their households, and they have partners and children that are dependent on their income. As a result, black women feel the effects of being low-balled throughout their careers over the course of the average Black woman's career, the lost income adds up to almost a Million dollars. So over the course of their careers, and I'll just repeat that over the course of the average Black woman's career, the lost income adds up to a million dollars. And for many of us who are Black women, we're not surprised. And I know if you're listening in and you're in this category, you're not surprised. You're thinking, yes, this is exactly it.

This is exactly what we've been saying for years. It's come to a head now with COVID-19 where the Black community has been hit, especially hard. We've all had relatives die. We've had relatives pass away. And it's unbelievable. The sacrifices that the Black community has made, especially in line with recent racial riots after the George Floyd killings and Breonna Taylor and other killings, it's just been unbelievable.

As economies are reopening that saw a record number of people quitting their jobs. And in April, 2021, I'll tell you that Exodus amounted to 4 million US workers or 2.7% of the US workforce. And so this statistic about Black professionals, the 3% statistic is just part and parcel of that. But of course, For Black professionals, this is magnified, right?

Whether you're male or female, this is magnified. And so many Black people suffer from microaggressions and discrimination at work. Most Black professionals don't feel like they belong in their workplaces. Many feel like they have to code switch, which is, changing the way they talk, the things they talk about, the way they behave, just to fit in at work.

And so these are some of the reasons apart from the pay discrimination that I just alluded to, why Black professionals are having a hard time. And so what has happened is that remote work has given Black professionals that environment, a safe environment, where they can be themselves, perform their duties the way they want to and not have to suffer from microaggressions and discrimination, of course, being micromanaged as so many black women and black men in the workforce are micromanaged simply because of a lack of trust, and that discrimination, is just one of the myriad of issues in the workplace that needs to be addressed by employers before shepherding back everyone en masse to the office.