Empowering Indigenous American Women on Equal Pay Day
Written by Katie Johnson, WIN Staff
It’s a well-known fact that there is a wage gap in the United States between women and their White non-Hispanic male counterparts. With every passing Equal Pay Day, we are faced with the stark reality that we should be doing better.
In 1963, the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, making it illegal for employers to pay their workers lower wages solely because of their gender. Today, 57 years later, the wage gap still disproportionately affects women but it impacts some women even more than others. Indigenous American women face the second-largest wage gap, earning only 42% of what White men make. Indigenous groups have had their own set of unique challenges over the last 200 years that have led to ongoing social problems and implications for employment and economic attainment.
The median annual pay for a Indigenous woman in the United States who holds a full-time year-round job is $34,466 ($25,884 less than a White, non-Hispanic man). To illustrate the real consequence of the wage gap consider the following statistics. If the wage gap were eliminated, a typical Indigenous American woman would have enough money to:
Earn $977,720 more over the course of a 40-year career
Afford nearly 3 additional years of tuition and fees for a four-year public university or the full cost of tuition and fees for a two-year college
Afford 34 more months of childcare
Cover 18 additional months of premiums for employer-based health insurance
It’s worth noting that Indigenous women in urban areas actually make less than their rural and reservation community counterparts. And unlike women from other groups, the wage gap actually increases with a woman’s education level (36% gap for those with high-school level education vs. a 42% gap for those with their Bachelor’s degree). 67% of Indigenous American mothers are the breadwinners for their families, yet the wage gap for mothers is larger than for women overall. To further complicate things, despite being 2% of the population (6.8 million people), there are very few statistics on Indigenous people’s representation in the workplace. Indigenous people are left out of data collection, becoming a part of the “other” category. The US Bureau of Statistics website notes:
Estimates for Indigenous Americans and Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, and people of Two or More Races are not shown separately in all tables because the number of survey respondents is too small to develop estimates of sufficient quality.
This possesses a number of problems for how we move forward with more diverse and inclusive initiatives. We sat down with Stephanie Poston (Pueblo of Sandia), who founded her own consulting communications firm, Poston & Associates LLC, 18 years ago. We wanted to learn more about her mission, how COVID-19 has impacted Indigenous communities, and what individuals and companies alike can do to mitigate the wage gap.
Stephanie, you do a lot of great work with Indigenous communities through your business, Poston & Associates. Tell me a little more about the work that you do.
I am the owner of Poston & Associates, a full-service communications marketing firm. I specialize in working with tribes and tribal entities throughout the country, and I also work with other indigenous populations around the globe.
I've been really blessed and fortunate, a lot of my work revolves around capacity-building and supporting tribes or entities in strategic planning or strategic facilitation through really helping them lift their positive narrative. So often in Indigenous communities you share the negatives, but there's so much more going on with our tribes than just the negative stories. There are doctors, there are attorneys, the national Poet Laureate is Indigenous American, there are engineers, and there are incredible people working on the ground as we speak during COVID who really support their community. There's a whole plethora of great stuff happening in Indigenous communities that rarely gets told.
The ongoing pandemic has pushed a lot of gender and racial inequities to the forefront of conversations this year. We can hope that these conversations will push inclusion forward in a more meaningful way. What would you say are some of the significant challenges Indigenous women face and how has this year impacted these barriers?
As Indigenous women, the statistics tell us we are [a lot of the time] single parents, the breadwinners for our families, and heads of households. In those cases, if moms are supporting their kids with homeschooling - as a lot of the tribes have chosen to homeschool their children - there’s a lot of juggling that must happen. What we are doing with childcare in our communities is an issue that has risen to the top. How are we supporting homeschooling efforts that are going on across the country? Additionally, there are inequities that exist due to the lack of broadband and access to the internet. A lot of tribes don’t have stable access to the internet, which is a huge barrier that is especially hitting the tribal communities.
Do you think there are any unique barriers that exist for Indigenous women as opposed to other minority groups? If yes, what are they?
Yes, I believe there are barriers Indigenous women face. If your business is based on a reservation, when you go to a traditional bank they are not as open to lending to you. This is a well-known issue. Then, as women, we are juggling a lot of things. We’re still trying to care for the kids and make sure they have what they need, have a full-time job, and be trying to launch a new business.
Similarly to the need for reliable internet for homeschooling, women need to have access to wi-fi if they are selling products online. If they are in a remote location, they need access to bigger cities or larger areas to sell. These are the challenges that folks don’t think about.
There’s a lot of challenges that Indigenous women face in succeeding in pay equity and we’re slowly making improvements.
Have you ever experienced or witnessed pay discrepancies towards Indigenous women? And if yes, what did you do?
For me, I started my own business, and that’s a big leap. I wouldn’t recommend it for everybody. I was maxed out but I loved the work I was doing. I haven’t been in the official 9 to 5 workforce in almost 19 years. I haven’t seen [pay discrepancies] first hand, but at the time, I didn’t have the agency or the wherewithal to negotiate or advocate for myself. I had a “suck it up buttercup” and “just move on” mentality. It felt like a bigger risk than just stepping out and starting my own business.
Tell me more about your co-founded initiative, Native Women Lead. How did it come about?
We [Poston and several of the other co-founders] were invited to a women’s summit here in Albuquerque to present in August 2017. We were all jazzed and ready to roll only to find out nobody signed up for our class. So we said, instead of waiting around for others to invite us to the table, we’ll create the table and we will set it. Then in October, we held our first forum to learn what women needed from us. We took inventory, got feedback, and then planned a one day Summit for April 2018. It completely sold out. We had 300 seats and each and every one of those seats was taken. From this we realized that Indigenous women had this really strong appetite for entrepreneurship.
Native Women Lead is a safe space for women to come together, share ideas, and learn. Some of the other co-founders have been doing incredible work raising funds to give out loans to women, because that is one of the barriers to successful entrepreneurship. If you live on a reservation, your access to capital is extremely limited, so we were able to prove some loans and that has been really significant. We also provide support through coaching, access to resources, and an exchange of information. We also plan on launching something really exciting in October.
Unfortunately, the economic fallout of COVID-19 will disproportionately affect women. This could mean setbacks for female-founded businesses. What are some ways individuals can help propel female-founded companies?
Buy from each other. Really buy. We talk about it, but we have to be intentional about buying services and products from people of color businesses and women businesses. Utilize them. Tap into it. And support them every chance you get.
Do you have any resources that you could share to help find these female-founded companies, especially within the Native community?
With Native Women Lead, that’s one thing we’ve been trying to put together. By tracking and creating a database of Indigenous women-owned businesses. With our upcoming announcement, I think we’ll get there faster to have the structure to do these really robust initiatives.
What do you believe companies can do to ensure that Indigenous American women (and men) are included in the conversation and that pay discrepancies are minimized?
I think having conversations with entities like Native Women Lead and tapping into our [Native] networks about how to address these needs and really putting the resources in to do that. I say this over and over but when Indigenous women (and women in general) are safe and secure economically, it gives them that space and that freedom to care for their children, to provide for their children, be active in their community, and be able to make a difference. When women are safe and secure economically, our families and communities benefit in ways we have not even measured.
What role, if any, does negotiation play in this picture? As far as pay discrepancies for Indigenous people and women, how can negotiation help in these scenarios?
I think negotiation is really important. Learn about it, understand it, then utilize it. Call that meeting or call that session to talk about your salary and talk about the wages and where you stand. I certainly wish I knew about it 18 years ago.
What advice do you have for young people to navigate the workplace?
You are the dreams your ancestors dreamed of and that you do have family and community to back you. You really are in a place to negotiate, to know your worth, and really believe it deeply. You have the skills, the talents, the knowledge, and you have your Indigenous wisdom with you to be able to navigate and ask for what you need. You, at any stage of your life - me sitting right here, you sitting there - we always have a choice and really tap into that. If at some point, you don’t feel valued, perhaps you take your skills and talents and wisdom elsewhere.
Want to ensure you're being paid what you're worth?
Join our next Breakthrough Mastermind!
LEARN MORE
About Stephanie Poston
Founder and Owner, Poston & Associates LLC + Co-Founder, Native Women Lead
Ms. Poston is committed to inspiring tribal communities through culturally competent, community based approaches. She has over 30 years' experience in public and community relations, marketing and branding, strategic facilitation and planning, event planning, and capacity building at the tribal, federal, state, and local levels.