August 28, 2025, is Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) Women’s Equal Pay Day, a date chosen to raise awareness of how NHPI women experience wage gaps and the impact on communities.
NOW members are highlighting the pay disparities different communities face, and the institutional barriers that prevent women from achieving equal pay and better wages.
Here are some facts from EPIC (Empowering Pacific Islander Communities):
- In 2023, NHPI women working full-time, year-round earned just 65 cents for every $1 paid to white, non-Hispanic men.
- When including all NHPI women earners—full-time, part-time, and seasonal—the number drops to 61 cents.
- Over a 40-year career, these inequities amount to enormous losses.
- For example, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) women working full-time, year-round typically lose $81,560 to the wage gap over a 40-year career, and Native Hawaiian women alone stand to lose nearly $1 million.
But according to the UFCW, those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“The biggest wage gaps experienced by NHPI women are hidden in data that aggregates Asian Americans and NHPI people together.
While Asian American women working full-time, year-round are paid 97 cents, and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men, pay disparities are more pronounced for NHPI women. NHPI women working full-time, year-round are paid 65 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 61 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men.”
That’s why NOW has been fighting for long-term policy solutions like the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Equality Act, the Healthy Families Act and others to achieve the transparency, equality and opportunity we deserve.
But until we achieve those lasting reforms, on days like today we are reminded of how much we have to push back against unprecedented actions by the Administration to undermine equality.
These include executive actions to eliminate the White House Initiative on Asian American, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, remove federal datasets at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other agencies, and disband advisory committees that monitor the Census and other federal data.
NOW members know that NHPI women can’t wait any longer. They deserve equal pay, strong worker protections and opportunities to build economic security. As NOW’s first Asian American president, I join our members in calling on Congress to hold agencies accountable for collecting honest data and enforcing worker protections, and to pass legislation that addresses the paid family and medical leave crisis, reduces the wage gap, and ensures NHPI women have access to the resources they need.
Until Justice is Ours,
Kim Villanueva
National President