There s this big narrative in the women s movement: 78 cents on the dollar. Everyone knows what that means. It s less talked about when it comes to race.
— Laura Weidman Powers, co-founder and CEO of Code2040, a nonprofit that says it aims to close the achievement, wealth, and skills gaps for Blacks and Latinos in the United States. A new report from the American Institute for Economic Research shows that blacks, Hispanics and Asians are not getting equal pay for equal work in the tech industry: Hispanics earn $16,353 a year less on average than non-Hispanics; Asians make $8,146 less than whites; and blacks $3,656 less than whites.
The research comes after a recent wave of what appears to be soul-searching on the part of tech companies, many of which have released the demographics of their workforces along with a common refrain: that they want to do better in hiring a more diverse workforce. (See our special section on Workplace Diversity.)
As for what the tech industry is doing to diversify the gender and race employment pipeline: Box, Facebook and Pinterest on Wednesday launched a mentorship program called WEST (Women Entering and Staying in Tech). And VC Marc Andressen and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, are giving $500,000 to Code2040, Girls Who Code and Hack the Hood. Tech is not yet inclusive enough, Andreessen told USA Today. There is no question that there is a huge opportunity to make it more inclusive and open it up to traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women and underrepresented minorities.
And simply increasing diversity is not enough. We also have to talk about money, Nicole Kreisberg, the senior research analyst for the research mentioned above, told USA Today in a separate article.
Photo: Google workers walk outside company headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Thursday, April 12, 2012. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press)
