EMILYs List Recognizes Native Women’s Equal Pay Day

For Immediate Release
September 8, 2021

EMILYs List Recognizes Native Women’s Equal Pay Day

Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, recognized Native Women’s Equal Pay Day, the day to which the average Native woman must work into 2021 for her earnings to equal the earnings of the average white man in 2020. Emily Cain, the executive director of EMILYs List, released the following statement:
 
“At a time when Native women have achieved new heights in the federal government, in Congress, and in state houses, Native Women’s Equal Pay Day serves as an important reminder of how far we still have to go to stop undervaluing and dismissing the work of Native American women. Making an average of 60 cents on the dollar compared to white men — sometimes less depending on the specific Native community being affected — Native women must work over eight months longer to make the same amount of income. This legacy of racism and the egregious history of violence against Native Americans is present even today, and it affects the livelihoods of Native women, families, and communities across the United States. EMILYs List is proud to help elect Democratic pro-choice Native women to office in order to dismantle and reimagine the systems designed to hold them back.”

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 158 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.