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‘Women Workers Running Faster Just to Stay in Place’ |
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Even though the proportion of women in managerial and professional occupations is on the rise nationwide and every state saw an increase in women’s educational attainment between 2000 and 2005, America’s female workforce still is not being paid the same as men.
A new report, The Best and Worst State Economies for Women, published by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), highlights women’s economic progress but emphasizes they still are far from achieving equal pay. Says economist Heidi Hartmann, who heads the organization:
At the current rate of progress, equal pay will take another 50 years.
IWPR, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, found that in 2005, women who work full-time, year-round had median annual earnings of $31,800, while men earned $41,300. That means overall, women were paid about 77 cents for every $1 a man made.
The wage gap actually worsened in 15 states between 1999 and 2005, ranging from a
0.2 percent increase in North Dakota to an 8.1 percentage point increase in Idaho. In fact, women’s real (inflation-adjusted) median annual earnings also fell nationwide during the past three years.
Amy Caiazza, who edited previous IWPR report cards, says the report should be a real eye-opener for policymakers:
Women made gains in credentials in a few short years in every state, but saw little closing of the wage gap in the same five year time-span. It seems like women are running faster just to stay in place.
Even in the District of Columbia, which ranks first for both women’s median wages ($42,400) and the gender pay ratio (85.5 percent), women lost ground relative to men in the past five years. Men’s median wages increased 14 percent, while women’s increased only 5 percent, for full-time, year-round workers there. Nevertheless, Washington, D.C., is the only jurisdiction where women’s median earnings are higher than the national median for men.
The report bears out what women said in the AFL-CIO 2006 Ask a Working Woman Survey Report.
In the biannual survey, working women said they worry about basic economic issues such as pay not keeping up with rising costs, inability to afford health insurance and lack of retirement security. Affordable health care is the top concern of women who responded to the survey—97 percent of them, across age and race lines, say they are worried about the rising costs of quality health care. But women carry other key concerns: job exporting, higher education costs, continuing discrimination on the job, lack of control over work hours and more.
Concerns about jobs lacking benefits, expressed by 78 percent of respondents, are well-justified. One-third or more of respondents say their jobs do not provide retirement benefits or prescription coverage. Nearly a third say they do not have paid sick leave. Well more than half say they do not have equal pay or control over their work hours.
In compiling the report, IWPR calculated wages, the gender wage gap, labor force participation, representation in managerial and professional occupations, business ownership and poverty.
When all the indicators are considered together, the states with the best economies for women are the District of Columbia (1), Maryland (2) and Massachusetts (3). The states with the worst economies for women are Arkansas (51), Louisiana (50) and West Virginia (49).
Says Vicky Lovell, employment and work/life director for IWPR:
There’s a real imbalance in women’s economic progress. The great strides in education and occupation that many women have achieved are coupled with economic insecurity from falling real earnings and inadequate health insurance. Unfortunately, many women are falling behind.
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