I was really hoping the recent release of Census data would bring good news: wage gap closed! Racial discrimination gone! Equality achieved! Not so much. Gaps in pay for women and racialized groups persist. Ditto for immigrants and Indigenous peoples. Consider Toronto, Canada’s largest city and one of its most diverse. More than half of Toronto’s population are immigrants. Exactly 50 per cent of the city’s population identifies as a visible minority. Maybe in the next Census, Statistics Canada will swap “visible minority” for “racialized,” seeing as 50 per cent is not a minority.

This post was originally published on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ blog Behind the Numbers.

The wage gap is pretty easy to understand. I do a job. You do a job. I get paid more. You get paid less. Unfair. Especially if you and I have the same training, work the same hours, and perform the same kind of tasks. And yet, the gender wage gap persists, right here in Canada, even when education, occupation, experience, and hours of work are considered. The gap is even bigger for Indigenous women, racialized women, immigrant women, and women with disabilities.