the unknown Wage Gap because of our Race.

In a recent blog I posted I spoke a little about economic issues and what it has to do with my song, but I would like to speak more on it. In my song I wrote about a time where there was nights where my family and I had no money to eat, scrapping our pennies together to try to afford something. I also spoke on the fact that we lacked on having nice clothes compared to other people around. I grew up with holes on my clothes and shoes, go to school and hope that no one would notice. This all happened even though both of my parents had full-time jobs and as I grew up I never understood to why we never had enough money for anything until now. My mother is a hispanic woman and my dad is an African American, the two races with the lowest hourly pay from full and part -time jobs. According to an article that did a 2015 study has quoted “ Among full- and part-time workers in the U.S., blacks in 2015 earned just 75% as much as whites in median hourly earnings and women earned 83% as much as men.” (pewresearch.org)

So not only do they both earn less than the average white man, but women earn less than the average man. Another article I found while doing research said in one of their first paragraphs, “Black and Hispanic workers of both sexes earn considerably less than White and Asian workers; as a result, the gender earnings ratio based on earnings of men of the same race or ethnicity is higher than the ratio for women of all races considered together…” (publications/gender wage gap 2016 earnings) So all in all, although these two races are extremely hard working, they earn less than anyone because of their roots and the color of their skin. This all leads back to my song because when I grew up I saw both my parents work so hard, my mother being a nurse and going to school meanwhile “Earnings for Black women working full-time, year-round declined by 1.3 percent between 2015 and 2016. White women’s earnings increased by 4.9 percent, Asian women’s by 2.8 percent, and Hispanic women’s by 0.1 percent,” after endless research there is still an unknown reason why my mother makes less than every female race and male in the United States. So I plan on taking my music and speaking more on the wage gap we have, and we need to fight to change it, for women and for our races. I want to spread the word and show we can make a difference, “In 2009, President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which allows victims of pay discrimination to file a complaint with the government against their employer within 180 days of their last paycheck. Previously, victims (most often women) were only allowed 180 days from the date of the first unfair paycheck,” (.infoplease.com/us/wage-gap/) not everyone knows about this act, so our first steps can be spreading it around, helping everyone fight for the money they deserve. All in all, I want to grow successful so I can finally show my parents what it’s like to live luxurious as they deserve.