VALUED WORKFORCE • OVERVIEW
Peeking into the fields
and behind the kitchen door
These abuses include wage theft, pesticide exposure
and poisoning, child labor, long work hours with
few breaks, racial and ethnic discrimination, unsafe
working conditions, sexual harassment, and lack of
access to health benefits, like insurance or paid time
off. 2 Most industries have racial and gender wage
gaps, but it is especially worse for those who work
in the food system. For every dollar earned by white
men working in the food chain, Latino men earned
76 cents, Black men 60 cents, Asian men 81 cents,
and Native men 44 cents. White women earned less
than half of their white male counterparts, at 47 cents
to every dollar. 3 Women of color faced both a racial
and a gender penalty: Black women earned 42 cents,
Latina women 45 cents, Asian women 58 cents, and
Native women 36 cents for every dollar earned by
white men. 4
Injuries and illness in the workplace have been on
the rise for food workers since 2010 with widespread
worker exploitation seen across all parts of the food
system. 5 Workers are often afraid to speak up about
these conditions because of fear of retaliation,
like increased harassment, losing their jobs, or
deportation.
Food workers bring food to our tables and contribute
so much to the economy, yet they’re often paid such
low wages that they’re not able to put food on their
plates. Sound backward that the people working with
food day in and day out often struggle to feed their
own families? Eight out of ten of the lowest-paying
jobs in the country are jobs in the food system. 6 Due
to these low wages, food chain workers experience
high degrees of food insecurity, defined as the lack
of access to affordable, nutritious food. 13 percent of
all food workers, nearly 2.8 million people, relied on
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits
(food stamps) to feed their households in 2016. This
was more than twice the rate of all other industries. 7
Asian Women $0.58
White Women $0.47
Latina Women $0.45
Black Women $0.42
Native Women $0.36
Asian Men $0.81
Latino Men $0.76
Black Men $0.60
Native Men $0.44
Average pay compared to
$1.00 earned by a white man
GOOD FOOD PURCHASING PROGRAM • GOOD FOOD RISING
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