The Case for Centering Black Women is Clear:
With a gender wage gap at $0.57 on the dollar, Black women earn $15K less annually than white women and $23K less than white men. (Status of Women in Dane County, 2016)
In Wisconsin, three of ten African American families live in poverty. In absolute terms, this level of poverty is second highest in the nation. Only Iowa has a higher rate of African American poverty (32.2 percent). Compare this to the 6 percent of the state’s white families that live in poverty. Wisconsin’s black families are 5.3 times more likely than white families to live in poverty: that disparity in poverty outcomes is the second highest in the nation. (WISCONSIN’S EXTREME RACIAL DISPARITY, 2017)
Since the 1980’s African American population has also grown, but much more gradually. The growing population of people of color further underscores the state’s urgent need to close wage and labor force participation gaps along racial lines. (The State of Working Wisconsin, 2016)
Many Black women are raising families by themselves with Black single mothers heading 44% of Black American family households, and raising 57% of all Black American children. (Nielsen, 2017)
Entrepreneurship is increasing. Black women are the majority owners in more than 1.5 million businesses with more than $42 billion in sales and $7.7 billion in payroll, making them the ultimate decision makers for purchases of supplies, equipment and raw materials, as well as employee benefit products.
The average household income of Black Americans, at $53,681, is lower than that of other ethnic or racial groups. The fact that single mother households exist at a rate twice that of the general population the relative youth of Black women (7.7 years younger than their non-Hispanic White counterparts), and the general lower incomes of females vs. males all exacerbate the household income issue.
