NYC Council finds pay disparities persist among city workers

Pay disparities along demographic lines like race, gender and ethnicity remain stark in New York City’s municipal workforce, a new City Council report revealed Thursday.

The annual report, which is required under a law the Council passed in 2019, found that women who work for the city make on average 73 cents for every dollar men make. It also showed that Black city employees make 71 cents to every dollar made by white workers, Latinos make 75 cents to every dollar in pay whites get and Asians get 85 cents compared to a dollar of a white person’s pay.

The report focused on 2019 city payroll data and attributed the disparities to what it described as “occupational segregation” — the fact that white men occupy more highly-paid positions then women and people of color.

When comparing employees across demographic lines who hold the same civil service titles, the report found that pay disparities were far less pronounced. Under those circumstances, for every dollar a white male employee made, on average, women, Latinos and Asians made 99 cents, while Blacks made 98 cents.

“We have long been aware that, even within our municipal workforce, pay disparity exists along racial and gender lines,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. “These pay inequities especially affect Black, Latina, and Asian women. As the most diverse and first women-majority Council, we will not rest until all New York City workers are valued equally with job salaries and opportunities for their contributions to our city regardless of gender or race.”

The latest numbers are similar to those released last year, which relied on payroll data from 2018 — but also show some key differences. While pay disparities were minimal when comparing people with the same civil service titles in both 2018 and 2019 data, the gaps when setting aside titles was more pronounced in the 2018 data. In that year, for every dollar earned by white employees, Blacks earned 67 cents, Latinos earned 74 cents and Asians earned 83 cents. Women made 73 cents, on average, when compared to white employees’ dollar earnings.

While those changes represented a “slight” improvement, according to the report, the Council noted that the pay gap “still persists.”

“The data confirms that non-white employees and female employees predominantly occupy civil service titles with the lowest median salaries,” the report concluded. “The same groups represent a much smaller proportion of employees who occupy civil service titles with the highest median salaries.”