Joy Reid is opening up about what she describes as pay inequality during her career, revealing that during her time at MSNBC, she earned far less than colleagues doing the same job.
Speaking earlier this month at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival’s C-Suite Soirée, the 56-year-old journalist told the audience she was paid “a tenth” of what others at the network, now known as MS NOW, received.
“The curse of competency means you’re the best person at what you do,” Reid said during her conversation with Jotaka Eaddy, founder of Full Circle Strategies, as reported by PEOPLE. “You know more than everyone else because you’ve had to do more work and more research to get where you are, and so therefore you’re the one everybody calls.”
She elaborated further, describing the pressure that came with being relied upon. “Because you are the best at it, you actually work the hardest, do the most hours, work the most overtime, and don’t get paid commensurate to the amount of work you do.”
While she did not give exact figures, Reid spoke openly about the pay gap she experienced. “I worked in a business where I was paid a tenth of the salary of people who did literally my same job, the whole time I worked there,” she explained. “And we knew that any man that was doing what I was doing was going to make more than me. And that they were going to be able to negotiate higher salaries, even at lower ratings.”
Get this, she went on to note how race and gender played a role. “It is just a thing that is true and unfortunately we have to figure out how emotionally to navigate it. We each have our own way of dealing with it, but unfortunately we all have to deal with it,” Reid said, adding that her non-Black peers, “work less hours and make more than us, get bigger raises, more opportunities and more grace.” She closed her remarks with a blunt reminder: “This is the world we live in.”
According to Newsweek, which we have not confirmed, Reid was reportedly earning $3 million a year as one of the highest-paid hosts on the network while leading The ReidOut, which was canceled earlier this year. The move came under new president Rebecca Kutler, who at the time stated, “This is going to be a really exciting time but also a challenging time. I think it’s important that we, as leaders are honest about that and about the challenges ahead. Our jobs are hard on a normal day, and these are not normal times.”
Now Reid is running her own daily digital broadcast, The Joy Reid Show, streaming on YouTube. The program is described as “A daily dose of Joy-Ann Reid’s takes and analysis of the news, politics, and culture. If it’s hot and happening, and matters to you, it’s here.”