Women’s Economic Status in the States: earnings highest in District of Columbia – lowest in Montana and South Dakota

Wage gap among the widest

Utah women earned 70.3 percent of what their male counterparts earned in 2002, an improvement from 65.8 percent in 1999, but a gap still wide enough to rank the state fifth-worst in the nation for wage disparity based on gender.

By Lisa Carricaburu
The Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04222004/business/business.asp

A woman working full time in Utah in 2002 earned an average annual salary of $27,000, compared with a man’s average annual earnings of $38,400, according to a report released earlier this week by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).

Such disparity also exists in neighboring states. Wyoming ranks last in the nation, with a gender pay gap of 66.3 percent; Idaho is 40th, at 72.5 percent, the report by the Washington, D.C.-based public policy research organization shows.

Nationwide, women earned $30,100, or 76.2 percent of men’s $39,500 average earnings.

"Clearly, we as a nation are still a long way away from demonstrating that we value the work women do," said Lorna Vogt, director of Utah Progressive Network, an economic justice advocacy group that reviewed the report at the IWPR’s request.

Even the report’s good news should be read with reservations, Vogt said. Utah’s wage gap improved, but not because women’s pay made significant gains. From 1999 to 2002, women’s wages increased 1.1 percent, but men’s wages decreased 5.4 percent.

"The fact that men earned less is the primary reason the gap narrowed," said April Shaw, an author of the report. "That’s obviously not how we want it to happen."

Shaw and her co-authors say wage disparity exists in part because women often have less education, job training and work experience than men. They also are underrepresented in higher-paying occupations. That is especially true in Utah, which ranked 41st in the nation in 2001 in the percentage of women employed in managerial and professional jobs, at 30 percent.

However, they cite research by the U.S. General Accounting Office that suggests 45 percent of the wage gap between men and women cannot be attributed to differences in training or choice of occupation, but rather is rooted in unequal treatment.

"People are reluctant to admit that we’re talking about discrimination for a good part of this," Vogt said.

Her organization has addressed wage parity through legislation that last year led to a study of the wage gap in Utah state jobs. It will continue to lobby for measures intended to narrow the gap.

Much also can be done to help young women realize they can help narrow the gap, said Lecia Parks Langston, a Utah Department of Workforce Services regional economist in St. George.

Many still believe they will marry and raise children on a single income earned by their husbands, yet it often does not end up that way. Census figures show 61 percent of Utah women work compared with 57.5 percent nationwide.

Women who establish themselves in high-paying careers end up having more choices when it comes to balancing their responsibilities, she said.

© Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.

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Intro to Report:

Women’s earnings, the female/male earnings
ratio, the occupation and industries in which
women work, women’s business ownership,
and women’s poverty are all important aspects of women’s
economic status.

Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR)

Informing Policy, Inspiring Change, Improving Lives

Although women have made
gains in all these areas in past decades, they still earn
less, are less likely to own a business, and are more likely
to live in poverty than men across the states.

With
median annual earnings of $30,100, women in the
United States still earn only 76.2 percent of what men
earn (Chart 1). Among working women, 33.2 percent
work in professional and managerial positions. About a
quarter (26.0 percent) of businesses are owned by
women, and 87.9 percent of women live above poverty.

The advances women have made are not experienced
equally by all women. African American, Native
American, and Hispanic women experience lower earnings
and are less likely to work in professional and managerial
jobs than white and Asian American women,
and white women are less likely to live in poverty than women in any other racial or ethnic group (Chart 2).
Moreover, there are significant differences and inequalities
among women within these larger racial and ethnic
categories.

Differences in women’s economic status are also evident
regionally and from state to state. Women’s earnings
range from $37,800 in the District of Columbia to
$24,400 in South Dakota and Montana, and the earnings
ratio ranges from 92.4 percent in the District of
Columbia to 66.3 percent in Wyoming (Chart 1).

The
District of Columbia also has the highest rate (49.3 percent)
of women employed in managerial or professional
occupations, while Idaho has the lowest (24.6 percent).
The District of Columbia has the highest proportion
(30.9 percent) of businesses owned by women, while
South Dakota has the lowest (21.5 percent). The percentage
of women living above poverty ranges from
92.7 percent in New Hampshire to 79.8 percent in
Mississippi.

The findings in this report provide an overview of
women’s status to assess the progress women have made
and remaining obstacles to their economic equality and
well-being across the country.

Full Report: http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/R260.pdf