ESSENCE Poll: Are You Making What You're Worth?

Are you hitting a pay wall at your job or do you feel like you’re just not earning the money you rightfully deserve? There may be an explanation for that.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women in the United States are paid 77 cents for every dollar men make. It gets worse: Black women earn 64 cents of every dollar White men earn. And most of the disparities occur in areas of the nation where Black women are working around the clock to support their families.

To put it simply, that missing money could go a long way in our communities. “Women of color are hard hit by a kind of perfect — and perfectly devastating — storm caused by discrimination, a struggling economy and the country’s failure to adopt family friendly workplace policies,” says Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. “These new data show that the wage gap is costing women of color thousands of dollars in critical income each year that could be spent on food, rent, health care and on meeting other fundamental needs for their families.”

So we must ask: Are you properly paid for all the hard work you do? Vote in the poll below and discuss what’s happening in your life in the comments.

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