Hispanic women face wage gap in U.S.

Mariela Serrato is feeling the impact of the chilled economy.

She's been out of work for a couple of months since she was laid off from her job packing candy, earning $10.50 an hour — roughly $420 a week.

Her family is surviving off savings and her husband's $14-an-hour construction job. For now, the Mexico native is staying at home, caring for her two children, ages 8 and 10, and searching for work — hoping to make at least $10 an hour, "but you know how the economy is," she said grimly.

Overall, Hispanic women who work full time earn a median weekly salary of just $460 a week, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center analysis of Current Population Survey data. That compares with $615 for non-Hispanic women.

Hispanic women born in the U.S. fared better than Hispanic immigrants, making $540 a week compared with $400 for immigrants, according to the Pew data. Mexican immigrants made the least, with median earnings of only $368 a week. That's just 60 cents for every dollar earned by a non-Hispanic woman.

However, Hispanic women do earn nearly 90 cents for every dollar earned by Hispanic men, according to the Pew data. That's less of a wage gap than the 77 cents non-Hispanic women earn for ever dollar earned by non-Hispanic men.

Olga Vives, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women, says immigrants' wages are largely impacted by three factors: their legal status, education level and language barrier.

"Most immigrants come to this country due to economic problems in their own country. They cannot survive there," Vives said. "They are willing to do anything that will bring them some sustenance."

Nearly half of Hispanic immigrant women have no high school diploma, according to the Pew Hispanic Center report, "Hispanic Women in the United States." Seven in 10 immigrant Hispanic women said they either didn't speak English at home or didn't speak English very well, the report said.

For women with little education and an inability to speak English, that typically means low-wage service or domestic jobs. Many of these jobs don't offer benefits.

And Elena Bensor of the Utah Labor Commission says Hispanic women, particularly the undocumented, are less likely to report being victims of unscrupulous employers. However, even legal immigrants may be the target of on-the-job discrimination because of the assumption they're undocumented.

That's because some employers threaten to turn workers in to immigration authorities for deportation if they report unpaid wages or sexual harassment, she said.