Florida Nonpofit Builds Anti-poverty Campaign on Equal Pay

Miami Herald
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Florida Nonprofit Builds Anti-poverty Campaign on Equal Pay

Giving Compass’ Take:

• Janet Kyle Altman explains how the Equal Pay Miami Dade project is working to achieve equal pay for women in Florida to lift them out of poverty. 

• How can philanthropists spread this movement? What areas have the greatest need?

• Read more about the gender wage gap. 

“If working women in Florida were paid the same as comparable men the poverty rate among all working women would fall by 57.3%.” So reads the headline on the new Equal Pay Miami Dade project website. The Women’s Fund of Miami Dade chose pay equity as a way to improve the quality of life for women and girls because “this single issue has the potential to positively impact a wider range of issues—affordable housing, childcare, transportation and more.”

Though the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits wage discrimination on the basis of sex, there is no regular monitoring program. Instead, issues surface when women file claims, which puts the burden and risk of reporting on those who can least carry it. As a result, nationally, women earn 78 cents on a man’s dollar. “Over fifteen years, a typical woman loses $499,101 due to pay inequity.” It’s even worse for Latinas and Black women.

The multi-year collaborative campaign will share statistics and stories that highlight the impact of unequal pay on the lives of women. It will ask employers to commit to equal pay and provide tools to help them put equal pay plans in place, and celebrate companies that make the commitment.

In an op-ed in the Miami Herald announcing the project launch on July 17th, 2017 and inviting readers to participate, Janet Kyle Altman, board chair of The Women’s Fund, wrote,

More than 20 percent of women in Miami-Dade County live in poverty. That’s more than a quarter-million women. Many of them are single, working mothers, struggling to put food on the table for their families. That’s not acceptable.”

Read the full article about the anti-poverty campaign build on equal pay by Janet Kyle Altman at Miami Herald.

Learning and benchmarking are key steps towards becoming an impact giver. If you are interested in giving with impact on Poverty take a look at these selections from Giving Compass.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Building Shared Understanding for Children and Families

    Giving Compass' Take: • FSG profiles the Staten Island Foundation, which has created an early childhood initiative with equity as a focus and a goal of solving core issues through close community engagement. • Among the tactics this foundation found useful is to make sure there's room for all perspectives and to encourage a healthy dialogue for systems change. Are we doing enough of that in other sectors? • Here are some other community-driven solutions that show promise. As those who have tried to do it before know, convening members of the community around a common issue can be difficult. But when you are able to successfully convene actors around a shared vision, there is a sense of hope that is contagious. The Staten Island Foundation, which first began working with FSG on Tackling Youth Substance Abuse in 2011, partnered with FSG this year to create the Staten Island Alliance for North Shore Children and Families, an early childhood initiative to improve wellbeing for children from birth to 8 years old. FSG supported The Staten Island Foundation in engaging a diverse group of cross-sector stakeholders to develop a common agenda for change, including a guiding vision, equity principles, and preliminary indicators and outcomes (e.g., family engagement, academic success, school readiness, and child health). The initiative’s steering committee worked to ensure that equity stood at the core of this initiative: members developed strategies to intentionally confront systemic barriers to opportunity. As a first step, this included disaggregating data by race, ethnicity, and geography, and inquiring as a group about the disparities that existed.

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