Wondering if your company's gender racial wage gap is more, less or equal to Greater Boston's average 2021 gap of 30 cents? The Boston Women's Workforce Council (BWWC) and the Mayor's Office of Women's Advancement (MOWA) have created an Employer Wage Gap Calculator to help each company in the city, or beyond, calculate the unique gap that exists among its staff.

The calculator empowers companies to use their own payroll data so they can obtain their raw wage gap and the information necessary to understand if there is a power gap at play, which occurs when women are outnumbered, outranked and out earned by men.

Calculating the internal gender and racial wage gap is the first step, according to Kim Borman, Executive Director of the BWWC. "Do the math," Borman says. "Taking stock of the gaps is not just about equal pay for equal work. The work that will really move the needle is addressing what we call the 'power gap,' which means advancing women, and especially women of color, into positions of power, and therefore higher pay, at the same rate as men."

Doing the math provides companies with a baseline to acknowledge the gaps and measure progress. When a company pays and advances women at the same rate as men, they create a workforce that has the diversity to succeed in the future. When all companies do this within a city, they will make the city a better place to live and work, attract and keep talent, and lead as a national economic example. "If you measure it, you can manage it," Borman says.

The BWWC is all about data. The organization anonymously aggregates payroll information from employers who have signed the 100% Talent Compact, a pledge to examine their policies, work toward fixing pay and advancement inequities they might find, and anonymously share their payroll data on race and gender in order to provide a community snapshot on progress. It is a first-in-the-nation approach to removing the visible and invisible barriers to women's advancement.

"Our partnership with the BWWC is bringing the city of Boston closer to eliminating the gender and racial wage gaps in our workforce," MOWA's Executive Director Alexandra Valdez say. "By creating this calculator, we hope companies take the time to look at their numbers and take action in their workplaces to remove the systemic barriers to women's advancement."

Based on this data, the BWWC has declared April 20th Boston Equal Pay Day — the day into 2022 which women must work to earn the same pay men earned in 2021. Boston Equal Pay Day is five weeks later than the National Equal pay Day because self-reported Census data is used to determine the national racial / gender wage gap. The BWWC's approach of using real payroll data is more accurate, Borman says. "If the national gender / racial wage gap was calculated with payroll data, the National Equal Pay Day would likely be later into the year," she says.

The BWWC leads a unique public-private partnership between the Mayor's office and Greater Boston employers dedicated to eliminating the gender/racial wage gap. Its approach can be a national model for all cities that want to equalize pay between genders and races.