Idaho women pay high price for wage gap
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 13 years, 2 months AGO
Today is Equal Pay Day, a date marking how far into 2012 women must work to catch up to what men earned in 2011.
Idaho's gender-based wage gap, the ninth worst in the nation, comes at a significant cost to women, according to a new report released by the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Women in Idaho are paid just 74 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to a yearly gap in wages of $10,725. African American women and Latinas in Idaho fare worse, being paid $14,315 and $17,622 less than all men in the state, respectively. With more than 56,000 Idaho households headed by women, the report shows that these gaps harm both families and the state economy.
The analysis ranks Idaho 42 among the 50 states.
“This new analysis illustrates just how much harm the wage gap does to women and families throughout the country, and especially to women of color where the gap between the wages paid to women and men is staggering,” said National Partnership President Debra L. Ness. “With state economies struggling and women increasingly serving as the sole or co-breadwinners for their families, tens of thousands of dollars in lost wages each year takes a tremendous toll.”
According to the report, if the gap between men’s and women’s wages were eliminated, each full-time working woman in Idaho could afford to pay for groceries for 1.6 years, buy 2,832 more gallons of gas, pay mortgage and utilities for nine more months, pay rent for 16 more months, or purchase family health insurance premiums for 2.9 more years. These necessities would be particularly important for the 32.9 percent of Idaho’s women-headed households currently living below the poverty level.
Nationally, women working full time are paid just 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Just as they do in Idaho, women of color fare worse. African American women are paid 62 cents and Latinas are paid just 54 cents for every dollar paid to men.
The gap has been closing at a rate of less than half a cent per year since passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963.
“The Equal Pay Act was enacted 49 years ago and women are still paid 23 cents less than men on the dollar,” Ness added. “Today, the wage gap causes enormous harm to women and families. It spans industries and persists regardless of education level. America’s women and families urgently need lawmakers to do much more to promote fair wages. Congress must not wait any longer. Passing the Paycheck Fairness Act must be a priority now.”
The Paycheck Fairness Act, which would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and establish stronger workplace protections for women, was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in the last two Congresses, but it fell two votes short of moving forward in the Senate in 2010. It has been reintroduced in the current Congress.
The National Partnership’s research on the gender-based wage gap was released Monday, the day before Equal Pay Day.
Equal Pay Day was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men's and women's wages.
The report spans all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each of the reports, along with charts ranking the states by wage gap for all women and women of color, are available at www.nationalpartnership.org/epd.
The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, access to quality health care and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family.