Size of Gender Pay Gap Varies By State, Job
By Susan Milligan, Special to Stateline
Woman working on an airplane motor at North American Aviation in California. Photographed by Alfred T. Palmer in June 1942, Library of Congress
On average, women made an average of 80.9 cents for every dollar a male earned in 2012, according to recent statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But from state to state, the numbers vary dramatically. Female workers in Wyoming, for example, earn just 65.5 percent of what men earn, worst of any state. In the nation’s capital, women fared best and are nearly at parity, making 94.8 cents on the male-earned dollar.
There is no clear regional or political pattern: Arkansas women experience a narrower gender gap (15.9 cents) than women in New York (17.1 cents), for example.
The reason for the differences, experts say, is a complicated and sometimes contradictory set of conditions, ranging from the states' dominant industries to labor union status and the percentage of workers earning the minimum wage.
And they caution that the gender gap number doesn't tell the whole story. Women might make less than men in Connecticut, for example, but a female worker there earns a median salary of $868 a week compared to a man’s median earnings of $1,127. In areas where financiers and lawyers are prevalent — like Connecticut — salaries between the genders, while higher, are more disparate.
In states where there are a lot of minimum-wage jobs, men’s and women's pay are likely to be closer. An Arizona woman might take solace in the fact that she earns about 87 percent of what men in the state earn, but on average, she's earning just $670 a week.
In straight salary comparisons, women fared best in the District of Columbia, where the median weekly salary in 2012 was $1,072, 94.8 percent of men’s $1,131. At the bottom by salary: Montana, where women earned $566 a week, 77.2 percent of men's $733.
The national median weekly wage for men was $854 in 2012 compared to $691 for women.
What Can States Do
Equal pay-related legislation was introduced in 11 states in 2013, according a summation prepared by the National Conference of State Legislatures for Stateline. A few examples:
- Vermont recently adopted a sweeping package that requires state contractors to prove they are complying with Vermont’s equal pay law, which says employers must pay equal wages, regardless of sex, for jobs that require "substantially equal, but not identical, skill, effort and responsibility." The law also bans retaliation against employees who disclose their salaries (specialists say women are more likely to demand and get higher salaries if they know what others are being paid).
- Oregon adopted a law ensuring equal pay for health practitioners.
- Louisiana last summer enacted the Louisiana Equal Pay for Women Act, which protects state employees from gender-based pay discrimination if the worker is doing the same or "substantially similar" work.
- In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has introduced an ambitious Women's Equality Act that addresses not just equal pay for the same job, but prohibits employers from denying jobs or promotions to women because they have children. The proposal also would allow women working in places with fewer than four employees (60 percent of New York businesses are this category) to file a sexual harassment claim. Currently, such small businesses are exempt.
- Connecticut recently finished a report on pay equity that encourages employers to publish salary ranges for jobs.
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