CLEVELAND — March 14, 2023 is Equal Pay Day, marking how far into the year women must work to make what men earned the previous year.
“It’s a huge issue. The pay gap still exists,” said Bethany Studenic, Co-Founder of Enlightened Solutions.
Studenic and Chinenye Nkemere joined forces to start Enlighted Solutions, a non-profit social advocacy think tank specializing in equity and organizational change.
“We’re overtaxed at home and then we’re underpaid at work and what we’re really seeing in the community is that women, in general, are being incredibly ground down,” Studenic said.
Statistics show Ohio is 33rd when it comes to equal pay between men and women.
“If Ohio is ranking 33 and if we know that Cleveland is still the worst city in America for Black women, based on workplace, health care and education, we have a long way to go,” Nkemere said.
“There have been amazing changes over the past 20 years, I would say — it’s not that there’s not changes — but the pace is slow, “ said Diana Bilimoria, Chair of Organizational Behavior, Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management.
She said there is not a simple solution to this complex problem.
“It requires a culture change, it requires a mindset change on the part of leadership and then cascaded through the organization," Bilimoria said.
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