Written by Leslie Gill, President of Rung for Women

It’s Equal Pay Day, the symbolic point in the year that women need to work in order to earn the same amount as their male counterparts in the previous year. When you disaggregate the data, women of color face a much wider gap. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting every aspect of our lives in profound and previously unimaginable ways, while also highlighting and intensifying existing inequities.

Here’s the reality of the situation – women are the breadwinner or co-breadwinner in the majority of all families, but are eight times more likely to earn poverty-level wages and more likely to serve as primary caregivers. Right now, they are bearing the brunt of this pandemic as low-wage workers lose their jobs by the millions and families scramble to balance work and caregiving responsibilities in a society where women still do most of the domestic tasks.

“Women are the breadwinner or co-breadwinner in the majority of all families, but are eight times more likely to earn poverty-level wages and more likely to serve as primary caregivers.”

These compounding issues are causing us at Rung for Women to reflect on how we can be nimble and responsive to the changing landscape for female workers and their families as we prepare to launch this summer. And, while we hope and pray for this crisis to subside, we will continue working diligently toward designing a pathway to good jobs with family-sustaining wages for women. We are in this together, and we ask that you join us on our journey by signing up for email alerts and following us on social media so that you can be in the know when we begin accepting applications for potential Rung members and volunteers later this year.

Thank you for all that you do to make the world a more equitable place for women and for us all.